Mexican drug lord’s son may have been kidnapped, official says

One of the sons of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman may be among six people kidnapped at a restaurant in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco state Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer said Tuesday.

“Chapo’s son may be one” of the people abducted on Monday, Almaguer told Radio Formula.

Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel rose to become one of the main sources of narcotics entering the United States.

The drug lord is being held at a prison in Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas.

“Despite the participation of several (security) agencies” in the investigation, it has been hard to identify the victims because several of them “had false identities,” Almaguer said.

Initial reports said 16 people were kidnapped around 1:00 a.m. Monday from the La Leche restaurant in a crime apparently linked to a fight between rival gangs.

“To clarify, seven armed subjects overpowered and kidnapped six people, six men who at the time were accompanied by approximately nine women,” who were not abducted and have not been located, Almaguer told the radio station.

No one has notified authorities of the kidnapping, the Jalisco AG said.

“There also has not been any anonymous telephone tip” about the kidnapping, Almaguer said.

The victims’ automobiles, all luxury models and at least one with a false registration, yielded information that investigators are analyzing, Almaguer said, adding that no weapons were found in the vehicles, just a single ammunition clip.

Three of the victims are from the northwestern state of Sinaloa, two are from Nayarit and one is from Jalisco, the state AG said.

One of the men kidnapped from the restaurant is a relative of a retired army captain who served as a bodyguard for former Jalisco Gov. Emilio Gonzalez Marquez.

A number of drug cartels have operated in Jalisco over the past few decades.

The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which was created in 2010 as a cell of the Sinaloa drug cartel, operates in the western state, at least seven other states and Mexico City.

The cartel was blamed for the March 19, 2015, attack on the Federal Police in the city of Ocotlan that left five officers and two civilians dead, unleashing a wave of violence in the state.

The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion is engaged in a turf war with the La Resistencia gang, which is allied with the Zetas drug cartel, for control of Jalisco.