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Freeing one of Mexico’s most wanted drug traffickers — one who is indicted by the U.S. Justice Department — was a humiliation for Mexico’s government, and revealed the full of extent of the Sinaloa Cartel’s power. To add to this humiliation, the government was forced to back track after its initial tale of how the mayhem unfolded was widely ridiculed.

In a video statement Thursday, Mexican security officials initially described a scene in which agents, on a routine patrol, came under attack by armed men from a house in Culiacán. State forces had been unexpectedly overwhelmed, it was suggested.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images

“The personnel fired back and took control of the house, in which they found four occupants. During that action, one of them was identified as Ovidio Guzmán López,” Durazo said.

“This resulted in various groups of organized crime groups who surrounded the house with a greater firepower than that of the patrol. In addition, other groups carried out violent actions against residents in various parts of the city, creating panic.”

Photo by REUTERS/Jesus Bustamante

Some experts, however, quickly poured scorn on this version of events.

“My suspicion is that they went after him (Guzman) and they lost,” Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City, told the New York Times.

Photo by RASHIDE FRIAS/AFP via Getty Images

Then, on Friday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador admitted that the event had not been a random incident, but rather security forces had been on a raid — they were trying to capture Guzman after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest and extradition to the U.S.