CHAPITO CAPTURED?

The intelligence community is abuzz right now with news that Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán may have been briefly captured by Mexican army units.

The information is incredibly conflicting and I should say now that it seems extremely unlikely.

However, law enforcement sources are a little suspicious of an attack earlier today, where four armored car guards were shot up in Mexico City. One was hit six or seven times, including a head shot. The killers escaped in a red Dodge Durango, a type of vehicle favored by Chapo.

The Culiacán, Sinaloa, newspaper El Debate, is reporting that last Saturday there was a raid of Mexican Special Forces troops in Sinaloa, up by the Durango border in Sinaloa de Leyva. Officials are denying it ever happened, but a paper like El Debate is not going to run news like that without something, some element of truth, in there.

According to El Debate, the raid was carried out with three helicopters. They say, and the word choice is interesting, that the Sinaloa delegate for the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office says he has no information "of a military operation in Sinaloa de Leyva, where, it is said, El Chapo Guzmán was arrested and then rescued by an armed group."

Last week, Sandra Avíla, The Queen of the Pacific, was arrested by federal police. She's going to be extradited to the United States. Arguably, she's one of the highest level narco-traffickers arrested in Mexico in recent years, for certain within Pres. Felipe Calderón's reign.

She's also one of the most fascinating characters that make up the Sinaloa syndicates.

When I get around to it, I'll tell you why.

-- Michael Marizco