The Secrets of The Capture of Ovidio Guzmán and The "New Queen of The Narco."

"Mica" for Borderlandbeat.com 

Anabel Hernández is a controversial Mexican Journalist. Her work covering narcos has received criticism for accuracy. With that in mind, her new work on Ovidio is worth reading. Enjoy! 

The Secrets of The Capture of Ovidio Guzmán and The "New Queen of The Narco."

By Anabel Hernández

"El Chapo" is in a security prison; "El Ratón" was trapped in his burrow, and his wife, Jesús Adriana, is emerging as the "new queen of the narco." Emma Coronel is already out of prison with one foot.

For the family of drug trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera alias "El Chapo", 2024 looks like a convulsive year of rearrangement of forces, alliances and families. All that would remain in the private sphere if it were not for the fact that members of the Guzmán family are members of the Sinaloa Cartel, and their behavior has a direct impact on Mexico and the world for their criminal power, violence, political and economic influence.

The fact that El Chapo spends his days and nights locked up in a maximum security prison in the United States, sentenced to life imprisonment, has not meant that the saga of the Guzmán family has ended.

While Ovidio Guzmán López, better known as "El Ratón", son of El Chapo, barely 32 years old, was captured on January 5 in an operation led by the United States government and special forces of the Secretariat of the Navy, and is now in a maximum security prison waiting for his extradition to the United States. USA. Emma Colonel Aispuro, Chapo's wife, who is the same age as her stepson, will be released this year after a benevolent treatment by the Department of Justice of the same country that wants the Mouse behind bars.

Ovid, according to his defense lawyers, suffers from serious health problems and suffers from "depression" and "anxiety". On the other hand, Emma, mother of Chapo's two daughters, seems to be reborn. The story of both intersects as in a Greek tragedy, not only because they are part of the Guzmán clan, but because of the way Ovid and Emma went through the same test of fire between affection and freedom.

Since Emma was just 17 years old, she has been entangled in the world of drug trafficking when she began a romantic relationship with El Chapo, 32 years older than her. She joined him when she was 18 years old, procreated twin daughters with the boss and became involved in her husband's criminal activities, enjoying money of illicit origin, serving as a messenger, and even paid bribes to public officials on the orders of her husband, according to a criminal accusation opened against her by the United States.

Drugs, weapons, violence, escapes and infidelities were part of Emma's daily life alongside Guzmán Loera, who became the world's most famous face of the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2014 she was with El Chapo, her little twin daughters and a nanny, when in an apartment in Mazatlan she broke into an operation orchestrated by the American anti-drug agency DEA, with the collaboration of an elite group of the US Navy. She jumped out of the bed she shared with her husband, who did not resist the arrest, possibly due to the presence of her family.

Since El Chapo returned to prison, Emma conspired with her stepsons, Iván Archivaldo, Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Ovidio Guzmán López, to plan Chapo's escape from the maximum security prison known as "El Altiplano" in mid-2015, a prison in which Ovidio Guzmán is now imprisoned.

El Chapo was recaptured, extradited to the United States. U.S. and sentenced to life imprisonment in New York's East District Court in 2019. Emma's complicity with drug trafficking were ventilated during her husband's trial. She was arrested in February 2021 at Dulles International Airport in Washington. The Deputy media said that, according to a source of information from the U.S. Department of Justice, Emma had surrendered, "a sign that she plans to cooperate with law enforcement agencies..." the media cited his informant.

The Chapo woman signed a guilt agreement, and in November 2021 she was sentenced to only three years in prison, a minimum sentence based on the 10 to 20 years in prison that awaited her. In September 2022, her lawyer, Mariel Colón, told the media that Emma had achieved a reduction in her sentence and according to official information from federal prisons, Emma is currently interned in the Carswell Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Fort Worth, Texas, and will be released on September 13, with the obligation of being supervised for 4 years.

The place where she is inmate is a federal administrative security medical center, a prison where inmates with health problems are treated, which has a minimum security area for a certain profile of inmates. Colón said that his client would enter a program in which she could leave the prison during the day and return to sleep at night.

The new Emma?
The last public memory of Emma was the drawings of the illustrators of the District Court of Columbia, in a green prisoner's uniform. And his lawyer claimed that he was being mistreated in prison. But last week I had access to photographs of Emma Coronel Aispuro, inside the social rehabilitation center where she is located. Apparently they are from April 2022.


Emma Coronel in the rehabilitation center where she is still. (January 2023).

At least for the moment, the outfits of Gucci, Dolce Gabanna and Prada were left behind, as well as the provocative clothes as close as a second skin on his curvy figure. On her temples is no longer the self-imposed crown of narco queen, with a defiant look and lips like a red apple. But you don't wear the usual and sad uniform of a regular prisoner either. She appears dressed in light gray baggy pants - which makes you think that her prison situation is more relaxed - and very white sneakers. He wears glasses with a white frame over his oblique eyes.

Away from the ostentatious jewelry, wear gold earrings and a pair of rings of the same color and a black watch. His hair is brown and long up to under his shoulders, with a simple haircut, and next to him you can see a black man who, because of his khaki clothing, could be another intern, with the exception that FMC Carswell is only for women. He doesn't wear makeup and his face looks calm.

Emma is an American citizen, as are her two daughters. As soon as she is released, she will not be deported to Mexico: she must be on probation for four years in the United States. U.S., where he has members of his maternal family, in California. Not bad for someone who was an accomplice of the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world, on a lower level, according to the Prosecutor's Office when she asked for a low sentence. The question is: when she is completely free, will she return to defend his crown as queen in the Guzmán clan, or will he be able to pursue a different life?

The tragedy of Ovid and Adriana
And while Emma begins to pack her bags, her stepson Ovid is now in prison. Personnel from institutions that participated in the capture of one of the members of the "Los Chapitos" clan, headed by Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, gave me details of the capture of the junior narco, which the government of Mexico will not want to officially recognize. The version was corroborated by various sources.

The operation had several phases. In the first location and detention, agents of the American government, members of the Special Operations Unit of the Navy (UNOPES), participated, and there was collaboration with the National Intelligence Center (CNI). It is claimed that the operation began at 10 pm on January 4 with the concentration of elements of the Navy. "We didn't know anything until 10 pm; they summoned us in Mazatlan and removed all the equipment, but we thought it was another matter," said one of the sources of information. Other elements were cited in Los Mochis, Sinaloa. Elements of the U.S. government The United States would have come from Sonora. It is claimed that the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, did not know about the operation.

At 2 in the morning, actions began on the perimeter of Jesus Mary, where Ovid was. The location was given by the DEA, as I pointed out in my previous collaboration with DW. "The coordinates were sent from Costa Rica and Cosalá," the source reported. The first is a union of Culiacán, and the second, the municipality where Jesús Adriana Meza Torres, wife of Ovid, was born, who was key in his arrest.

Jesús Adriana, whom after the capture of Ovid they already call "the new queen of the narco", matching his situation to that of Emma in 2016, when it came to light in an interview I gave her. She was born on October 6, 1989 and was registered in Cosalá, Sinaloa. She is the daughter of drug trafficker Raúl Meza Ontiveros, known as "El M 6", lieutenant and partner of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Aída Elizabeth Torres Félix, sister of two other members of the criminal organization: Javier Torres Félix, the "JT", and Manuel Torres Félix, alias "M1" or "El Ondeado", the latter would have been present on the day

Ovid and Adriana had at least two daughters. As happened in 2014 in the operation in which the DEA arrested his father in Mazatlan, he was arrested when he was with his wife and daughters.

Despite the success in Ovid's location, I am informed that he had managed to escape from the house of Jesus Mary, where he had been located. He had already taken an advantage of a few minutes when his protective shield was put into action, but his wife and daughters were trapped when the air shots of the aircraft occupied in the operation began. It is claimed that one of her daughters went into a nervous breakdown from the gunshot, and Adriana called Ovid to tell him that her daughter was in a serious crisis. It is claimed that Chapo's son returned for them, and there he was caught, coming to the negotiation to leave his family safe and sound.

According to another informant who agrees with the version, members of the United States government spoke to him. At 5:30 am it is claimed that the first burning of vehicles began in the vicinity of Jesús María, Culiacán and other parts of Sinaloa, for example, Badiraguato, as a reaction of the armed forces of "Los Chapitos", but it is claimed that they did not use their entire fire capacity.

The Army and the National Guard had entered operation in a second and third moment as reinforcement, but Ovid had already been captured.

In the attack of the armed group of "Los Chapitos", at the international airport of the City of Culiacán, a member of special operations was injured, an Aeromexico plane had a "structural damage to its hydraulic system", and a third aircraft suffered a direct attack and one of its propellers caught fire.

In military helicopters such as the EC-725 Registration 1006 and an ULTRA ULTUH-60 aircraft of the National Guard, wounded personnel of the Mexican government were transported. I have the names, but for your safety I am not going to publish them.

It is pointed out that there were about 200 deaths in the operation, but that the Mexican government withdrew the bodies. This version coincides with the one given to me by local neighbors with whom I spoke on the phone on January 6, when Jesus Mary was still taken by the Army. "It was a war camp against the civilian population," a neighbor told me, "we do not know the magnitude, but there are many dead and many wounded."

An official of one of the institutions that participated pointed out that there was "collateral damage, 28 civilian casualties." By definition, it is assumed that they were not members of the criminal group.

The extradition of Ovidio Guzmán López, according to former officials who are experts in the field, is not a legal issue but a political decision. The role of judge in determining whether the extradition request complies with international standards is only a procedure, and the verdict on whether it meets the requirements depends on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Marcelo Ebrard, who has the last word. It also depends on Ovid whether it places legal obstacles for his extradition, or if he facilitates it. If the son of El Chapo removes the legal obstacles, for the AMLO government it will be very expensive, politically speaking, to avoid his extradition, which, without a doubt, would be explosive for the so-called Fourth Transformation and in the rearrangements of the Sinaloa Cartel.

It would be more than scandalous if, due to obstacles of the Mexican government, "El ratón" could suffer an incident in prison or make an escape.