Guatemalan authorities have captured the son of a prominent drug trafficker due to be extradited to the United States, as the net around one of the country's traditional crime families closes in.
Waldemar Lorenzana Cordon, namesake of his jailed father, was captured in southeastern Zacapa department after a joint operation on September 17 carried out by Guatemalan antinarcotics prosecutors, National Police (PNC) and the US Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA), reported Prensa Libre.
Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla announced that an outstanding extradition request from the United States will now be considered, reported elPeriodico.
It is the latest blow to the Lorenzanas, a family-based drug trafficking organization with ties to Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel. Family patriarch Waldemar Lorenzana Lima, was captured in April 2011, followed by Waldemar Cordon's brother Elio Lorenzana, who was arrested in November 2011. In August 2012, Guatemalan authorities granted an extradition request for Waldemar senior.
Late last year, the US Treasury placed sanctions on Ovaldino Lorenzana Cordon and Marta Julia Lorenzana Cordon, who elPeriodico report are now the remaining direct family members of the clan overseeing operations.
InSight Crime Analysis
While the capture of the younger Waldemar Lorenzana represents a victory for Guatemalan authorities and the DEA, the already beleaguered organization is not finished yet.
However, even if authorities successfully obliterate the network, it would not have cataclysmic effects on the dynamic of drug trafficking in Guatemala. The Lorenzanas are just one of many organizations working with the Sinaloa Cartel; the dominant Mexican organization in the country following the demise of the Zetas.
SEE ALSO: The Zetas in Guatemala
While this latest arrest is another heavy blow to the Lorenzanas, the underworld in Guatemala has proven capable of reacting to similar challenges in the past, and competing transport networks readily fill voids as they arise. As long as other criminal networks, such as the Mendozas, continue to escape the attention of authorities, any victories claimed by the authorities remain for the most part cosmetic.
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