Mexico arrests son of ‘El Chapo’: Why don’t citizens feel safer?

Lizbeth Angüis, a programmer in her late 20s, grew up in Sinaloa – the Mexican state with a storied history of organized crime, sometimes referred to as the cradle of Mexican drug cartels – hearing messages that drug traffickers are untouchable and that if you support them, they’ll take care of you.

But that myth has been shattered for her – and residents across the northwestern city of Culiacán – as the government has sought to crack down on the Sinaloa cartel.

Last week, after the Mexican government captured Ovidio Guzmán, son of the Sinaloa kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, his supporters set cars, trash trucks, and public buses ablaze in broad daylight. Nearly 30 soldiers and alleged criminals were killed in gunfire, a grim echo of a deadly revenge attack by cartel members in 2019.