Update: It turns out Mexican government did not capture el Chapo’s son
Mexico’s Attorney General said on Friday night that the Mexican military was wrong about this man’s identity. He is not El Chapo’s son.
By MANUEL RUEDA
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said on Friday night, that a man captured by Mexican marines on Thursday was not El Chapo’s son, as the country’s military had claimed, but is instead Felix Beltran Leon, a 23-year-old from Durango State. Leon’s mother told Reforma newspaper that her son is not connected to the drug trade, and claimed that he was simply a car salesman in Guadalajara. Read below for more info on this shocking case.
On Thursday the Mexican Navy paraded this guy in front of journalists, claiming he was the son of feared drug trafficker Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.
Officials said that when he was caught he possessed a grenade launcher, $135,000 dollars in cash and ID cards bearing different names.
But is this young suspect really El Chapo’s son?
A woman who claims to be his mother spoke to journalists on Friday and said that the man pictured above is unrelated to the powerful drug dealer. She added that his name is Felix Beltran Leon, and not Jesus Alfredo Guzman, as Mexican officials had claimed on Thursday.
“There is no way that he is [EL Chapo’s] son,” said Heriberto Rangel, a lawyer who is representing this -ambiguous- suspect. Rangel told the AFP news agency that on Friday, he presented officials with ID cards, and fingerprints, that prove that his client is not El Chapo’s son.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s office said that it will conduct a series of scientific tests to determine this man’s true identity.
But will the Attorney General reach its verdict before Mexico’s July 1st presidential elections?
A mistake over El Chapito’s identity, wold be a major embarrassment for President Felipe Calderon and his National Action Party, which has attempted to sell itself to voters as the party that is truly “tough” on crime.
PAN candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota, who is currently third in polls, even celebrated the capture of El Chapo’s son on her Twitter account yesterday.
Josefina, as she is commonly known here, might have celebrated too soon.
(Photo: Screen Capture/Youtube)
