begin quote from:
MEXICO
CITY — The abduction was notable for how and where it took place —
during a birthday party at a restaurant in the Mexican Pacific Coast
resort of Puerto Vallarta — and because the kidnappers and the victims …
MEXICO
CITY — The abduction was notable for how and where it took place —
during a birthday party at a restaurant in the Mexican Pacific Coast
resort of Puerto Vallarta — and because the kidnappers and the victims
are criminals.
Now, it turns out that a son of the drug cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera was one of the six men abducted at gunpoint early Monday morning.
Not a shot was fired as the gunmen hustled Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, 30 — an operative in the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico’s
most powerful criminal enterprise — and the others into sport utility
vehicles, according to the attorney general for Jalisco State, Eduardo
Almaguer. Mr. Almaguer confirmed Tuesday that the younger Mr. Guzmán was
one of the missing men, who had not been heard from as of Tuesday
night.
His father’s escape last year from a maximum-security prison through a mile-long tunnel dug under his cell embarrassed the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto and underscored Mexico’s
reputation for pervasive corruption and impunity for well-connected
criminals. Mr. Peña Nieto had hailed his arrest in February 2014 as a
major victory in a long campaign against the powerful narcotics rackets.
The elder Mr. Guzmán, known as El Chapo, or Shorty, was recaptured in January and is fighting extradition to the United States.
Jesús
Alfredo and his older brother Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, 35, face
federal drug trafficking and money laundering charges in the United
States.
Mr.
Almaguer did not name the group behind the kidnapping this week, except
to describe it as an organization that has been active in Jalisco. Over
the past few years, a racket called the Jalisco New Generation Cartel
has emerged as a growing force in western Mexico, and last year, it
organized several deadly attacks on state and federal police officers.
The
kidnapping “appears to be in retaliation for some action that the
Sinaloa Cartel has taken against Jalisco New Generation,” Eduardo
Guerrero, a security consultant with Lantia Consultores in Mexico City,
said in a telephone interview.
“Let’s
hope it isn’t the beginning of a series of violent events,” he said,
although he described the younger Mr. Guzmán as more of a symbolic
figure for the Sinaloa Cartel. The organization is believed to be under
the control of Ismael Zambada García, a longtime associate of the elder
Mr. Guzmán.
Still,
both brothers are close collaborators with their father. Iván Guzmán
was arrested on money laundering charges in 2005 but was released in
2008 by a judge who found that there was insufficient evidence against
him. 
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