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<\/p>\nA drug lord's abandoned mansion was "covered in blood" in the aftermath of a city-wide battle with police.<\/p>\n
Luis Chaparro broke into the home of El Chapo's son Ovidio Guzman after his Sinaloa cartel were engaged in a bloody battle with Mexican cops.<\/p>\n
Luis said there were \u201cbullets everywhere\u201d as he made his way through the blood-spattered rooms. \u201cInside it was like a was war zone,\u201d he said. \u201cI was like stepping in sticky blood all over.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went into Guzm\u00e1n\u2019s daughter\u2019s room, where he saw bedding soaked in blood. In his extraordinary video, 50-calibre bullet casings clink underfoot as he makes his way from room to room filming the carnage left behind after Mexican police had raided the luxury home in Culiacan.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Brutal cartel-run Mexican prisons where inmates 'play basketball with decapitated heads'<\/b><\/p>\n
For more chilling tales about drug cartels, check out our dedicated page<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
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Officials in the city in northwestern Mexico had told civilians to stay indoors as the authorities staged a battle with Sinaloa cartel gangsters. The battle even spread to a nearby airport where Mexican airline Aeromexico said one of its planes had been hit by gunfire as it taxied on the runway.<\/p>\n
On the morning of January 6 this year, Luis had been tipped off that a major police operation was under way. He recalled: \u201cThey were setting up trucks and vehicles to block roads around Culiacan and setting them on fire\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI was getting all those reports and I thought they were probably doing an operation against someone big\u2026 but I never thought they were going against one of El Chapo\u2019s sons.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n World's most dangerous city is 'controlled by gangs' who burn bodies in streets![](\"https:\/\/s2-prod.mirror.co.uk\/@trinitymirrordigital\/chameleon-branding\/publications\/dailystar\/img\/logo-schema-dailystar.png\"){kind=logo}
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It was only when Luis got another tip, telling him that the operation was centred on the Jesus Maria district, that he realised how big the story was going to be. He continued: \u201cI knew that Jesus Maria is the town where Ovidio Guzm\u00e1n was hiding. <\/p>\n
"He has a ranch, a beautiful house… it\u2019s a state-of-the-art property in this very poor impoverished area.<\/p>\n
"The ranch is outside Culiacan , about 40 minutes drive outside the main city in Sinaloa so when I read Jesus Maria I though \u2019s*** they\u2019re after him \u2013 this is happening, they're going to get him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n El Chapo's son in prison where dad 'escaped on motorbike through secret tunnel'<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Luis rushed to the area, frantically calling major Mexican media outlets to tell them he was going to have the story. <\/p>\n
He had to take elaborate precautions, booking three different flights and three different hotels, because cartel bosses had put a $60,000 bounty on his head over previous reports he had made on their activities.<\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n 'I got shot but was so high on crack I didn't care \u2013 I just did a Rambo trick''<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
When he arrived in the city, the gun battle was still raging. Cartel forces were using SUVs fitted with armour in attempt to batter their way through the police cordon. <\/p>\n
Luis made his way to Guzm\u00e1n\u2019s mansion: \u201cThere were burned trucks, burned buses, hand grenades all over\u2026 it was a war zone up there. <\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n Inside El Chapo's homes as cops struggle to sell drug kingpin's ill-gotten gains<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
"As we got up to Jesus Maria there was a checkpoint manned by Sinaloa cartel henchmen\u2026 a lot of sicarios on motorcycles driving around\u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n
Luis made it to the house and saw what he thought was a group of government officials, wearing suits, milling around outside the property. But he was mistaken: \u201cThey weren\u2019t from the government. It turned out it was Ovidio Guzm\u00e1n\u2019s mum, a former wife of El Chapo who also has a $5million bounty from the US government on her for being involved in the cartel.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/figure>\n Gruesome autopsy photo of faceless man sparked fears of alien abduction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The woman, Griselda L\u00f3pez P\u00e9rez, furiously told Luis to stop filming and to \u201cget the f*** away\u201d. Luis made himself scarce, but managed to interview a few neighbours. Guzm\u00e1n, it emerged, had always been very generous to the locals and was something of a hero in the area.<\/p>\n
But Luis realised that the mansion had been left unguarded: \u201cIt\u2019s now or never, \u201c he said, \u201cI needed to go in and see what happened inside his house \u2026 I needed to see how he was living.<\/p>\n
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