Earlier this month, heavily armed soldiers in Mexico carrying out a raid on a property where they were able to arrest the son of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, Ovidio Guzman.
Then the young cartel leader, believed to be 27 years old, can be seeing coming out of the Culiacán compound and is arrested by officers. However, within two minutes of soldiers raiding the compound, the Sinaloa cartel had already begun amassing an army of gunmen outside, the New York Post reports.
After mass violence broke out, soldiers handed the kingpin’s son a cell phone and pleaded for him to call his brother and instruct him to call off the attack. "Tell him to stop everything. Tell him to retreat," one soldier can be heard saying in Spanish on the dramatic video of the raid.
Check out the chaotic bodycam footage below:However, Ovidio's brother, Archivaldo Guzman, refused and instead ordered a full-scale assault against the National Guard, government offices, and the city itself.
Per the Telegraph, the violence eventually led to authorities retreating. As a result, 19 soldiers and police officers were injured, and Ovidio Guzman was eventually released. Furthermore, 13 people were killed in the bloodshed and dozens of inmates escaped from prison.
The Culiacán city was left looking like a war zone after Cartel thugs hijacked cars and city buses to close off sections of the city - torching vehicles, bridges, and toll booths in the process. Chaos ensued for several hours.
Explosive scenes from the city can be seen below:In a press conference, the Mexican Security Minister Alfonso Durazo referred to the botched raid as "tactical stumble" that he admitted helped reestablish the force of the Sinaloa cartel - but insisted officers were left no choice but to free Ovidio in order to keep the peace. Durazo said:
"What could have become a scene of war and the shedding of innocent blood was resolved in favor of a return to peace and protecting the population."
Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador watched on as Durazo and other security officials gave a detailed run-through of the raid and the chaos that followed.
The raid was granted by a Mexican judge, who signed a warrant allowing officials to have Ovidio arrested and eventually extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges. Around 35 National Guard troops set out to capture El Chapo's son at around 2:30 pm. Just hours later, he was free again.