A group of hitmen led by El Chapo's sons have terrorised a town in Mexico. Watch here:
The armed group, which numbered 150 men from the Sinaloa Cartel, was reportedly able to take over the town of Caborca, in the northern state of Sonora, on Tuesday (15 February).
According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, the group killed two people and kidnapped five more, having passed right in front of a National Guard detachment and another group of soldiers without being stopped.
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An unnamed local told the publication: "There was not a single member of the authorities who came out to confront them, all the soldiers hid. They left us all alone, they abandoned us."
The town is still reeling from the invasion, with mayor Abraham David Mier Nogales urging businesses to observe an unofficial 10pm curfew.
It is currently unclear if any of El Chapo's sons participated in the invasion of the town, or if they simply ordered it.
Their dad - real name Joaquin Guzman - is the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and is considered to be one of the most prolific drug traffickers of all time.
The 64-year-old was sentenced to life behind bars for a massive drug conspiracy that spread murder and mayhem for more than two decades.
Last month, his conviction was upheld by a US appeals court, that praised the trial judge for his handling of a case that drew international attention.
The decision by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected claims that Judge Brian Cogan made rulings allowing a jury to hear faulty evidence at Guzman's 2019 trial.
Judge Cogan 'conducted the three-month trial with diligence and fairness, after issuing a series of meticulously crafted pretrial rulings', the ruling by the panel concluded.
On appeal, his lawyers had argued that the guilty verdict was tainted because some jurors reportedly sought out news accounts about sex abuse allegations against him that were barred from the trial, and that Judge Cogan erred by not ordering a hearing on the reports.
"The decision seems like it was decided and written before the argument even occurred," one of Guzman's lawyers, Jeffrey Lichtman, said in a statement.
"How can there be justice here when the jury was exposed to scurrilous claims against Mr Guzman which were not part of the government’s case?"
The appeals court found that Judge Cogan was to correct in finding 'that the jury was not prejudiced by any extraneous information to which they might have been exposed'.
It added: "Any possible prejudice was harmless in view of the overwhelming evidence of Guzman's guilt."
Before the trial in federal court in Brooklyn, Guzman had attained near-mythical status by escaping from prison twice in Mexico, the second time through a tunnel dug into the shower of his cell.
He was recaptured and sent in 2017 to the United States and put in solitary confinement.
Topics: Crime, World News
Jake Massey