Anabel Hernandez: In the bowels of the extradition of Ovidio Guzmán

Mica translated an opinion piece from Anabel Hernadez.

Insecure, fearful and submissive. This is how those who know him describe Ovidio Guzmán López, alias "El Ratón", who was extradited on September 15, 2023 to Chicago, Illinois (United States). He is accused of leading, along with his brothers Iván Archivaldo, Alfredo and Joaquín Guzmán, all children of drug trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the criminal group called "Los Chapitos", which according to the United States government is now the most powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

People related to the criminal accusations against Ovidio Guzmán consulted for this article reveal that during his incarceration in Mexico, Ovidio had contact with agents of the United States anti-drug agency, DEA.

The panorama doesn't look good for "The Mouse". At just 33 years old, he has three criminal files open in the United States. The oldest dates from 2009, is 1:09-cr-00383- 22, and is based in Chicago, where he arrived extradited last Friday. There he is accused, along with more than twenty people - including his three brothers - of trafficking thousands of kilograms of cocaine and heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana, money laundering, continuous criminal company control and transport of stolen properties.

The second criminal case against him dates back to 2018 and is in the District Court of Columbia, where Emma Coronel was tried. There he is accused, along with his brother Joaquín Guzmán López, of trafficking more than 500 grams of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.

The third file, and the one with the most serious accusation, is the one filed in the Southern District Court of New York, case 1:23-cr-00042. There he is accused of being the precursor, in 2014, of fentanyl trafficking to the United States, causing the death of more than 70,000 people between August 2021 and August 2022. He is charged with possession of firearms, violent crimes and money laundering, among others. In that same court, his brothers Iván Archivaldo, Alfredo, and Joaquín are also accused.

If he goes to trial and is found guilty, Ovid could be sentenced to between 20 years in life imprisonment, like his father, who after the sentence received in 2019 in the Eastern District Court of New York will spend the rest of his life in a cold and lonely cell in the United States.

According to informants, the United States government expects that Ovid prefers not to go to trial and reach an agreement with the Department of Justice and begin to collaborate, as did at the time Vicente Zambada Niebla (son of Ismael Zambada García, leader of another faction of the Sinaloa Cartel), Dámaso López Núñez, right-handman of "El Chapo" or Sergio Villarreal Barragán, lieutenant of Arturo Beltrán Leyva, leader of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel.

Following those steps would involve giving information about his accomplices, including his brothers, and state and federal authorities that have given protection to him and the Sinaloa Cartel.

"The Mouse" Guzmán

Those who know Ovidio well and have seen him perform within "Los Chapitos" claim that for years he has been under the orders of his half-brother Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, son of "El Chapo" and his first wife, Alejandrina Salazar.

In most of the meetings he didn't speak or give his opinion, he just nodded his head to follow Ivan's instructions. He is classified as "very reserved and nervous," and during his life he has constantly required psychological therapy due to the high levels of stress he suffers from.

Since the age of 19, he has been married to Adriana Meza Torres, daughter of Aida Elizabeth Torres Félix and Raúl Meza Ontiveros, known as "El M6", lieutenant and partner of the Sinaloa Cartel. Adriana Meza is also the niece of the powerful and bloodthirsty Manuel Torres Félix, the "M1", head of the armed armies of that drug trafficking organization.

Those who know the couple's story say that Adriana has always exercised dominion over her husband, and that even she went to party while her supportive husband stayed at home to take care of the three daughters they share.

Ovidio was arrested in 2019 in the city of Culiacán, but the Mexican Army released him on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, because allegedly the operation armed by "Los Chapitos" to free his brother outnumbered the authorities, and several lives were in danger, according to the official version. The event, better known as "el culiacanazo", has been one of the most embarrassing episodes in AMLO's mandate.

As I revealed last January in this space, in the second capture operation carried out in the town of Jesús María, a ranch in the municipality of Cualiacán, Ovidio had managed to escape despite the fact that the house where he was with his wife and daughters was under fire, but he returned when Adriana called him to tell him that the house was still being attacked and that one of his daughters had a nervous breakdown. Thus, "The Mouse", who had managed to sneak away, returned and fell into the mousetrap.

Emma Coronel partying after Ovid's extradition

On September 13, Emma Coronel, the wife of drug trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera and stepmother of "Los Chapitos", was officially declared free after serving a brief sentence of two years and seven months in prison. For the night of the 15th, she was celebrating the Mexican national holidays as a special guest at the concert of the band Los Rayos de Oaxaca, held at the El Faralllón event center, in Lynwood, California.

Accompanied by her lawyer Mariel Colón, Joaquín Guzmán Loera's partner arrived at the event like a star, smiling and grooming their long brown hair, followed by a group that looked like security guards. She was dressed in very fitted white pants, black cowboy boots, and a sand-colored vest, attached to the body.

And while she enjoyed the joy of freedom, Ovidio Guzmán López was being imprisoned in Chicago. It was no coincidence, the two events are connected.

During the trial against "El Chapo" carried out in New York in late 2018 and early 2019, it came to light that Emma Coronel had participated in the planning of her husband's escape from the Mexican maximum security prison located in the State of Mexico, carried out in 2015. She had served as a messenger to "El Chapo" to issue instructions to the Sinaloa Cartel and had paid bribes, contributing to the continuity in the criminal operations of the most important drug trafficking organization in the world.

In February 2021, she was arrested in Washington DC on charges of serious crimes such as drug trafficking and money laundering. The minimum sentence that awaited her was ten years in prison, but miraculously she pleaded guilty, there was no trial and they gave her a sentence of just three years that was reduced to two years and seven months.

The media outlet Vice revealed at the time that Emma had made an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office in exchange for collaborating, that is, giving information about what she knew about the Sinaloa cartel. Her lawyers denied that version.

After Emma's release, sources linked to the facts claim that "El Chapo's"'s wife did give information about "Los Chapitos", whom she was afraid of because they had a bad relationship that worsened since "El Chapo" was arrested in 2014.

What is a fact is that after Emma's arrest, coincidentally the Department of Justice was able to refine and expand the criminal cases against the children of "El Chapo". Today Iván Archivaldo, 40, is on the list of the ten most wanted criminals in the world.

Ovidio's crossroads

After the so-called "culiacanazo" it is claimed that Ovid changed his profile and began to bring his own armed people.

After his arrest last January, Ovid was resentful with his half-brothers Iván Archivaldo and Alfredo, and has complained that he was abandoned.

Griselda López, mother of Ovidio and Joaquín, exerts a lot of influence on "El Ratón", and a rupture between the Guzmán López and the Guzmán Salazar could be foreseen, and a fratricidal struggle could begin.

But the extradition of Ovidio will not only have consequences for the criminal clan of the Guzmán brothers, but also for different state authorities such as Sinaloa, whose government is headed by the Morenoite Rubén Rocha Moya, and for senior officials of the federal government before and now.

Some will think that if AMLO's government executed the extradition, it has nothing to hide, but the extraditions made in other six-year terms, such as that of Felipe Calderón, were quite counterproductive since in many cases the extradited criminals testified against the president and his closest collaborators, such as the then Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna.

The revelations of "The Mouse" in the middle of the electoral contest for the Presidency of the Republic, whose election will take place in June 2024, could change the electoral panorama and the fate of the so-called Fourth Transformation.

Thanks for reading! Mica cartelinsider.com