El Chapo’s nephew was shot dead in Mexico’s violent Sinaloa state

The man found dead inside a Toyota Corolla vehicle abandoned near the El Ranchito community, by the southern exit of the Culiacán, was identified as Enrique Romero Guzmán Rocha, who was Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's nephew.

El Chapo's nephew

, who was identified by his relatives, was the brother of the late Juan Guzmán Rocha, also known as “El Juanón,” and had an arrest warrant in Chicago over drug trafficking.

According to the report issued by the Culiacán Municipal Police, they were notified on Wednesday early morning about a dead person in the driver seat of a vehicle.

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The victim, who was later identified as Guzmán Rocha, was shot multiple times. On July 3, 2019, he was persecuted in several streets of the Pemex neighborhood by an armed group.

That time, in which he was driving a Toyota vehicle with license plates from the State of Mexico, he was accompanied by a young woman named Karen, who died, while he was mildly injured when entering the parking lot of a Pemex plant to escape from the aggressors.

As of his brother, Juan Guzmán, who federal and military authorities considered to be one of the Guzmán Loera operators, was found dead on December 2011.

“El Juanon,” as he was best known, was intercepted by an armed group on a highway to Navolato when he was driving along José Miguel Bastidas Manjarrez; both of them were found with signs of torture and shots.

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is a notorious Mexican drug lord who was found guilty of running a murderous criminal organization, the Sinaloa Cartel , that smuggled tons of drugs into the United States. He was also found guilty of engaging in multiple murder conspiracies as the top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s largest and most violent drug cartels.

Last year, “El Chapo” was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole and moved to a high-security facility in Colorado after being convicted in a U.S. court for smuggling tons of drugs to the United States over a colorful, decades-long career in what was dubbed the biggest drug-dealing trial in the history of the United States.

U.S. prosecutors have claimed that Guzmán sold more than USD $12 billion worth of drugs and Forbes magazine once listed him among the world’s richest men.

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Guzmán cemented his status as a criminal sensation by breaking out of maximum-security prisons in Mexico twice, first in 2001, and again in 2015. He also avoided massive manhunts until he was recaptured in early 2016 and extradited to the U.S. a year later.

“The arrest and extradition of Guzmán were good for Mexican justice and the U.S., but in reality, it’s more symbolic because the Sinaloa cartel still is the most important cartel in the world,” said Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former Chief of International operation. He also explained that its power is possible thanks to Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s leadership, who is the cartel’s co-founder.

Meanwhile, El Chapo cultivated a Robin Hood image among the poor in Sinaloa , where people expressed sadness at the news of his conviction and some even described him as a fallen hero and a community benefactor, since they say he helped a lot of people, built roads, schools, and churches, making them overlook the murders and violence he left behind.

A recent example of this took place last April, when Alejandrina Guzmán, El Chapo's daughter handed out aid boxes with the name and image of the infamous drug lord to elderly people isolated at their houses due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Mexican city of Guadalajara.

The boxes were distributed by employees of the clothing brand El Chapo 701, a company owned by Alejandrina Guzmán with which she was sought to extol the story and image of her father.

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