The son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was released by Mexican authorities, who came under intense attack after they detained him in a Western Mexican city Thursday.
Ovidio Guzman Lopez, who is wanted in the US on drug-trafficking charges, was detained by Mexican National Guard and Army troops who raided a house he was in after being fired upon, according to Mexican security secretary Alfonso Durazo.
But heavily armed gunmen who had a “greater force” than the government troops surrounded the house, so they suspended the operation and released Lopez from the house in order “to protect lives,” Durazo said.
As word spread of Lopez’s capture, intense gun battles broke out in the city in Mexico’s Sinaloa state.
A main road that leads out of the city was blocked by burning trucks, and others were shut by the army, according to local reports.
Images shared on Twitter show masked gunmen manning a machine gun mounted to the back of a truck on the streets of the city. Other gunman loyal to the cartel fired .50-caliber sniper rifles from the back of trucks.
In January, a Brooklyn federal judge sentenced El Chapo to life in prison, which opened up a power vacuum in the cartel once considered the most prolific drug-dealing outfit in the world.
Prosecutors in El Chapo’s trial said last year that his “favorite” sons Ivan and Alfredo had stepped in to fill their father’s shoes.
