On Thursday, the police in Guatemala captured an alleged drug trafficker wanted by the United State. He’s a member of a historic local family clan related to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel of Joaquín el Chapo Guzmán.
Guatemalan Haroldo Jeremías Lorenzana Cordón, 53, was arrested in a mountainous area of the village of La Reforma in the municipality of Huité, 85 km northeast of Guatemala City.
Lorenzana Cordón tried to escape on a horse when he noticed the capture operation, led by prosecutors and anti-narcotics police, Pablo Castillo, spokesman for the National Civil Police, told reporters.
According to local press, Lorenzana Cordón is the son of the octogenarian Waldemar Lorenzana Lima, aka “El Patriarca,” who pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in 2014 in the United States.
The Lorenzana have had for more than three decades as a bastion the eastern department of Zacapa, bordering with Honduras.
In February 2018, another member of the Lorenzana clan, Eliu, was sentenced by a Washington DC court to spend the rest of his life behind bars, after a trial in March 2016 in which he was convicted of conspiring to import and distribute tons of cocaine to the United States.
Other members of the Lorenzana family have also been prosecuted on drug charges. The Lorenzana have been singled out for drug trafficking alongside the Sinaloa cartel, whose former leader Chapo Guzmán, considered one of the world’s largest drug traffickers, was sentenced in New York to life in prison last July.
Guatemala is the final stage of the Central American drug trafficking route, which goes from the South American producing regions to Mexico, mainly to the US market, the main drug consumer.