Mexico City, Aug 29 (EFE).- The Mexican Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said Thursday that the “release” of Ovidio Guzmán, son of Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, detained by Mexico and extradited to the United States in 2023, is related to the capture of Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada.
The FGR said in a statement that it “does not know” Guzmán’s whereabouts after the capture in the United States on July 25 of Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López, another of El Chapo’s sons, in addition to having evidence of a link between the two events.
“In the investigation of the Ismael ‘N’-Joaquín ‘N’ case, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has obtained evidence of a chronological sequence, which begins with the release of Ovidio ‘G’ from a high-security prison in the US prison system, on July 23, 2024,” the agency stated.
The independent body said that Guzmán’s release occurred “two days before the alleged kidnapping” of Zambada, whom Guzmán López put on a plane to take him to the United States, where they were both arrested near an airport in El Paso, Texas, according to the official version.
However, in the case of Ovidio Guzmán, the current status of this person and his location within the United States remain “unknown,” the FGR stated.
The statement by the Attorney General’s Office contrasts with the statement by Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, who one day after Zambada’s capture stated that “the United States Embassy reported that Ovidio has not been released,” but rather that “there has been a change in the precautionary measure.”
On the day of El Mayo’s capture, the United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) showed in its system that Ovidio Guzmán, detained by Mexico and extradited to the United States in 2023 for being one of the major suspects in fentanyl trafficking to North America, was no longer in its custody.
The Prosecutor’s Office also found that the Beechcraft 200 aircraft in which Guzmán López took Zambada had the registration number N287KA and the serial number BB1137, “both false and superimposed on that aircraft,” since the original registration number in 2019 was N200TP.
“Later, the aircraft was transferred to Colombia, where it was registered with the Colombian registration HK4658G. Later, in 2021, it obtained a new registration in the USA (United States), N44JN, which does not match the one currently held by the aircraft,” he explained.
In this regard, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating “the connection between the situation and location of Ovidio ‘G’; the participation of his brother Joaquín in the alleged kidnapping of Ismael ‘N'” and “the violence with which it was carried out.”
“Therefore, it is essential to urgently obtain the information” requested from the United States, he concluded.
