‘El Chapo’ son may have been kidnapped, family says

One of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s sons was among a group of people abducted from a restaurant in the Mexican tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta, the state attorney general said on Tuesday.

They had earlier said that one of them may have been another of Guzman’s sons, Ivan “El Chapito” (Little Chapo) Guzman.

Salazar, who’s also wanted by US authorities for smuggling, has been trying with his brother Iván Archivaldo to keep their father’s powerful Sinaloa cartel operating in his absence.

“After reviewing security camera footage, [Jalisco state Attorney General Eduardo] Almaguer said that besides the restaurant’s staff, there were nine women and seven men dining together when the gunmen burst in early Monday”.

Jesus Alfredo is the youngest of El Chapo’s children from his first marriage, along with Ivan Archivaldo Guzman.

He said initial evidence suggested Jalisco New Generation was behind the kidnapping.

El Chapo himself is now in a maximum security federal prison in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez after staging a jailbreak past year before being recaptured in January.

Shortly before 1 a.m. on Monday, seven armed men stormed into a trendy restaurant on the main drag of Mexican beach resort Puerto Vallarta.

Jalisco New Generation emerged after the death of the local boss of the Sinaloa cartel, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel.

Their father, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is in jail fighting extradition to the United States.

Almaguer had also said that Ivan Archivaldo was among those kidnapped, though he eventually backpedaled on the claim. They also say one of his brothers, Ivan, may have been simultaneously abducted. Some reports allege that former Guzman associate and cousin Alfredo Beltrán Guzmán, 24, might have been behind the abductions.

In 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department designated him under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act as assisting his father in drug trafficking.

Almaguer said authorities were still working to confirm the identities of two of the six men taken. “People have information about the family’s movements and they want to destroy the family”.