Why is Ovidio Guzmán one of Mexico’s most wanted men?

Mexican security forces on Thursday arrested cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán, son of incarcerated kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, the country’s defense minister

MEXICO CITY — Mexican security forces on Thursday arrested cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán, son of incarcerated kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, the country’s defense minister said.

Guzmán’s detention in Culiacan, the capital of the northwestern state of Sinaloa, the heartland of Mexico’s drug trade, follows his short-lived detention in 2019.

News of Thursday’s arrest sparked retaliatory violence throughout Sinaloa.

Guzmán, nicknamed “The Mouse,” became a high-level leader in the Sinaloa Cartel after his father’s arrest in 2016 and extradition in 2017. Guzmán and his brothers, known as Los Chapitos, or Little Chapos, emerged as leaders of one of the four factions in the cartel.

El Chapo’s arrest also led to intensification of bloody clashes with the competing Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which had split from the Sinaloa Cartel in 2010.