'El Chapo' Guzmán March To Free Drug Lord Investigated By Sinaloa, Mexico Government

Mario “Malova” López Valdés, the governor of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, said on Thursday on Mexico’s Primero Noticias that the state government is already carrying out an investigation into who organized rallies in the cities of Culiacán and Guamúchil in support of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel drug boss who was captured last weekend by Mexican marines. Animal Politico reports that López Valdés told the radio station, “Some say the march was organized by friends and family members of El Chapo …We don’t have the information right now, the investigation should uncover it.”

In Culiacán, long a heartland of sorts for the Sinaloa Cartel, an estimated 2,000 people convened in the town’s center to call for Guzmán’s release after pamphlets were reportedly distributed across the city early in the morning calling on residents to dress in white and join the demonstrators’ ranks. López Valdés put the number of protestors well below 2,000 in the interview, saying, “It was a big surprise for us when we saw that almost a thousand people were convened there. We asked ourselves if we could act and the lawyers told us that in this country, freedom of expression and protest have to be privileged.”

He claimed that while there was no sign of any protestors being threatened into attending the march, those who turned out did receive water, tamales, money and even beer. According to Reforma, the Sinaloa state public security office said that 10 people had been detained in connection with the march, though they had since been freed after family members paid bail. The Guardian reports that some of the demonstrators said they supported El Chapo because he provided employment -- especially in poor areas in the rugged Sinaloa countryside -- where the government offered little of the same.