“They look so Mexican!”: The truth behind the photo of the US Marines who arrested Ovidio Guzmán

Last Thursday, January 5, the union of Jesús María, Culiacán, became a theater of war after the capture of Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in an operation that left 29 dead.

Nearly 3,500 soldiers were deployed in Culiacán and nearby places as part of the “National Peace and Security Plan” after the offensive unleashed by the Sinaloa Cartel to rescue their boss, who is now being held hundreds of kilometers away in the maximum security prison of “El Altiplano”, the same one from which his father escaped in 2015.

After the capture of Guzmán López, a photograph was released that showed a group of marines with Anglo-Saxon features, apparently American, who wore military uniform and the logo of the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) of Mexico.

The caption of the photograph read with an ironic tone: “The ‘navy’ agents who captured Ovidio look so Mexican, they say ‘ay, wey!”.

However, according to a reverse lookup exercise by the agency Associated Pressthe people that appear in the image are not members of the Armed Forces, neither of Mexico nor of the United States.

Nor did they participate in the arrest of Ovidio Guzmán; They are actors from the television series “SEAL Team” in a photograph that was released in 2018.

Justin Melnick, part of the cast, shared this image on November 14, 2018 on Instagram, in a post in which he invited to see the “SEAL Team” series.

“In all seriousness I would like to thank the Puerto Rico police for being with us while we filmed #sealteam #borderwars“, wrote.

The United States government denied this Monday, December 9, that the capture last week of the drug trafficker also known as “El Ratón” was coordinated with the visit of US President Joe Biden to Mexico.

“those things are not like that”, he told the agency EFE a senior official of the US Administration a few hours after the president of the republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, host Biden for a bilateral meeting in Mexico City on immigration and drug trafficking.

On the other hand, some analysts such as Óscar Balderas, a journalist specializing in drug trafficking issues, point out that the Ovidio Guzmán’s arrest would not represent a strong blow to the Sinaloa Cartelbecause the structure and routes of the criminal organization have not been affected.

The communicator even commented that the insurance of The mouse it would be more of a “trophy” for the Mexican administration: “Ovid Guzman is a trophy for the mexican government. He is not a generator of violence or an irreplaceable methamphetamine and fentanyl dealer,” he shared via his Twitter account.

One of the heads of the criminal organization that does appear as relevant, according to intelligence reports, is the brother of Ovidio, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar. Said person would be responsible for ordering the actions carried out by armed men after the failed capture of The mouse during October 2019, a fact known as culiacanazo.

In 2013, the US government accused Iván Archivaldo Guzmán of importation of methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, as well as for conspiracy to launder money. The DEA currently offers a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

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