Drug lord El Chapo's nephew Enrique Guzmán shot dead, riddled with bullets in car amid fears of a cartel war
Drug lord Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's nephew, Enrique Guzmán, was shot dead inside a car in an attack that has sparked fears of heightened cartel wars. Culiacán authorities in El ranchero, Mexico, found Enrique dead in the driver's seat of a red Toyota Corolla, which was reportedly riddled with bullets. According to investigators, the 45-year-old died of multiple gunshot wounds to the body. Before Enrique's body was sent to forensic experts, members of his family identified him.
No arrests have yet been made in Enrique's killing and no motive has yet been offered. The attack comes just weeks after a gang linked to El Chapo's sons had launched an attack in Sonora, killing at least 10 people linked to a group working for Rafael Caro Quintero, the notorious drug lord featured in Netflix's hit series 'Narcos'.
Shortly after Enrique's death, a video was uploaded on social media by a motorist showed a group of masked individuals setting up checkpoints and questioning drivers and pedestrians in Culiacán. The masked people appeared to be members of the Sinaloa Cartel. There had been an assassination attempted at Enrique last year also, on July 3, 2019.
Mexican newspaper El Universal states that several armed men chased his vehicle in the Culiacán town of Pemex, however, he escaped ambush but suffered a gunshot wound. Enrique's girlfriend, identified as Karen, who was also in the car with him, however, died in the attack. He reportedly escaped the attackers by driving into a state-owned oil company parking lot.
Enrique's brother, Juan 'El Juanón' Guzmán, was also killed in an attack in December 2011 after being kidnapped by armed men. The hit allegedly was ordered by El Chapo, according to explosive testimony offered by his mistress Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez. She had revealed the details during the drug lord's trial in New York in January 2019. Sánchez recalled that El Chapo "did not react" when his nephew broke the news to him. "He looked at me seriously and then he said some words I did not like," Sánchez recalled. "What he said was that from that point on, whoever betrayed him was going to die, whether they were family or women."
Meanwhile, El Chapo's daughter, in April, appeared on a Facebook live stream, where she was filmed packing boxes with food supplies for the elderly in Mexico amid the coronavirus pandemic. Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán, however, put her notorious drug lord father's face on all the supplies.
Guzmán was seen accompanied by her team of workers as she visited multiple poor neighborhoods to deliver the essential supplies across the Guadalajara metropolitan area. "You have toilet paper. There are flavored cornstarches. There is also seasoning for noodle soups and noodle soups," she said in the video, detailing the content of the packages. "We have three different types of soups. There are crackers, oil, sugar, beans, and rice, too
Guzmán's prime focus is to reportedly reach out to the aging population of the city, who are severely affected because of the economic crisis social distancing rules have brought on. The drug lord's daughter, in the live broadcast, wore a facemask that had a picture of her incarcerated father on it.