[18] On 17 October 2019, members of the National Guard briefly arrested Ovidio Guzmán López in Culiacán, Sinaloa, setting off several gun battles in the city.

[19][15][20] Heavily armed[21][22] cartel gunmen (numbering over 600) threatened mass civilian deaths,[23][24] including an attack to the apartment complex housing the relatives of the local military personnel.

[25][26][27] Hours later, Ovidio Guzmán was freed,[28] with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador saying he supported the decision in order to "prevent more bloodshed".

The military executed a pre-dawn raid on Guzmán López's residence that used a helicopter and convoy of ground vehicles and apprehended him within 10 hours of entry.

[2] The day after his arrest, a federal judge placed Guzmán López under a 60-day preventive detention to allow U.S. authorities to formally petition for his extradition.

Following the arrest, the U.S. Consulate in Hermosillo shared that it had received reports of gunfire, roadblocks, and fires throughout the cities of Culiacán, Los Mochis, and Guasave.

[46] Attacks on two trucks on Highway 15 in neighboring Sonora prompted Aeroméxico to also cancel flights from Ciudad Obregón International Airport.

[56] Following Guzmán López's capture, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control applied sanctions pursuant to Executive Order 14059 against individuals and corporations of Sinaloa Cartel's networks supplying drug precursors for illicit manufacture of methamphetamine and fentanyl in so-called super-laboratories.

[57][58] A parallel press announcement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the sanctions as "part of a whole-of-government effort to disrupt and dismantle the transnational criminal organizations that facilitate the illicit supply of fentanyl and other narcotics".

[59] On the same day as these announcements, the docket of the U.S. criminal case against Guzmán López was updated, with the trial attorney of the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section of the Department of Justice substituting as Government counsel of record.

U.S Attorney General Merrick Garland described the extradition as "the most recent step in the Justice Department's effort to attack every aspect of the cartel's operations".

[63][64][65][66] On 23 July 2024, two days before the arrests of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Ovidio's brother Joaquín Guzmán López, the Bureau of Prisons inmate records showed his status as released.