Almost Caught Again the Final Time
How El Chapo Was Finally Captured, Again
MEXICO Metropolis — Stripped to his undershirt and covered in filth, the world's most notorious drug lord dragged himself out of the sewers and into the middle of traffic.
Disoriented from his long trudge underground, with gun-toting marines on his heels, he found himself standing across the street from a Walmart. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the kingpin known across the earth as El Chapo, would have to improvise. His cavalry was not coming.
He and his acme lieutenant commandeered a white Volkswagen from a passing motorist, merely only a few blocks later, the car became engulfed in smoke, witnesses said. Desperate for another vehicle, the ii men spotted a red Ford Focus at a traffic light, driven by a woman with her daughter and 5-yr-old grandson.
"Get out of the car now," said the lieutenant, his weapon trained on the woman as he lifted the door handle, witnesses said. She complied, prying the child from the back seat and leaving her belongings in the machine. Politely, the lieutenant handed over her pocketbook before speeding off.
The Mexican marines had been on Mr. Guzmán's trail for more than 6 months, ever since he humiliated the nation past escaping its well-nigh secure prison through a tunnel that led into the shower floor of his jail cell.
The chase had led them into the remote wilds of the Golden Triangle, on the border of Durango and Sinaloa states, an surface area where Mr. Guzmán is revered. He evaded multiple raids by the Mexican authorities, including a close brush after he sat for an interview with the American actor Sean Penn.
Simply it had come at a cost. The authorities had swept through xviii of his homes and properties in his native lands. Days on end in the inhospitable mountains, where even a billionaire like Mr. Guzmán was forced to rough it, left him yearning for a scrap of comfort.
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In early January, he arrived in the coastal city of Los Mochis, in Sinaloa, at a home where the regime had trailed one of the master tunnel diggers from his escape. Construction crews had been hard at work on the firm for weeks. Phone intercepts indicated that someone large was virtually to arrive.
The final bit of bear witness was a food order, Mexican officials said.
Just two blocks away, a large order of tacos was picked up after midnight on Jan. eight by a human being driving a white van, like the one believed to be driven by Mr. Guzmán's associates, witnesses said.
Hours later, at 4:xxx a.m., the marines stormed the compound, meeting a knot of doors and fierce resistance from gunmen. Like many of Mr. Guzmán's homes, this one was equipped with elaborate escape hatches: a decoy beneath the refrigerator, and some other behind a closet mirror, which he used to flee as the battle raged.
Hours later, on a highway heading out of town, the authorities finally got Mr. Guzmán, arguably the most powerful drug dealer in the history of the trade, for the third time since 1993.
A Potent Symbol
Mr. Guzmán's capture — described using information from interviews with witnesses and government officials, police reports, military machine video and Mexican news reports confirmed by officials — brings to a close, for now, i of the most exhaustive manhunts the Mexican authorities has conducted, an try that drew in more than two,500 people across the nation.
That all that effort was committed to the pursuit of a single human being — whose arrest, despite his wealth and influence, will exercise petty to modify the dynamics of the drug trade or the war against information technology — reflects just how potent a symbol Mr. Guzmán has become in Mexico and across.
As the head of the Sinaloa dare, Mr. Guzmán is the embodiment of an identity the country has fought to shed for decades. To some, the uneducated subcontract male child turned dare magnate is a Robin Hood effigy for modern times, revered for his fight against the regime and generosity to the poor. For others, he is a heartless criminal who floods America's streets with narcotics and leaves Mexico's streets strewn with bodies.
Either way, Mr. Guzmán represents a deep crunch for Mexico's leaders as they struggle to define the country'south image.
His daring escape from prison last July, in view of the video photographic camera in his cell, cast a lurid spotlight on the incompetence and corruption that has long indomitable the Mexican land, driving many to view the government on a par with criminals.
Now, the recapture of Mr. Guzmán, who has escaped prison twice, is about United mexican states repairing its security relationship with America; its image globally; and perchance almost important, its leaders' relationship with their ain people.
El Chapo's image, past dissimilarity, seemed simply to grow after his escapes. Maybe more than the infamy he gained as a dare main — responsible for shipping tons of drugs to more than 50 countries effectually the globe, with a wider reach than even Pablo Escobar in his heyday — Mr. Guzmán has earned a reputation as the earth's pre-eminent escape artist.
After breaking out of prison in 2001 (by some accounts, he sneaked out in a laundry cart), Mr. Guzmán dodged the Mexican and American authorities for more than a decade. At a network of homes he owned, his team of engineers and diggers had expertly synthetic tunnels enabling him to slip abroad, time and again, often just minutes before raids.
In Feb 2014, the government arrived at a business firm in Culiacán only to detect a signature Chapo play a joke on — a tunnel entrance below a bathtub — through which the kingpin had just fled.
He was, after all, a creator of the border tunnel, underground passages equipped with lighting, ventilation and mechanical carts to smuggle drugs into the United States without having to bother with the headache of evading customs agents. In full, Mr. Guzmán's system is estimated to have burrowed more than xc such passages betwixt Mexico and the The states.
Merely those tunnels could hardly compare to the one crafted for his escape last summer from the most secure wing of the country'south nearly secure prison. During the 17 months Mr. Guzmán was locked up, he met frequently with associates, non simply to programme his legal defence, merely also to plot his escape, Mexican officials said. His men purchased state inside sight of the prison house, constructing an outer wall and an unfinished building on the site. From at that place, a mile away, the excavation began.
They eventually reached the exact spot beneath Mr. Guzmán's jail cell, tunneling upwardly beneath the shower floor, into a narrow infinite behind a waist-loftier wall that gave prisoners some modicum of privacy from the 24-60 minutes surveillance camera. At eight:52 p.one thousand. on July 11, 2015, Mr. Guzmán walked into his shower, aptitude over and disappeared into fable for the second time.
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Ii Cessna jets afterward whisked him back to the mountains of his childhood, where the pursuit would begin, again.
Lure of Silver Screen
Even earlier Mr. Guzmán vanished from custody, though, he was making plans for a vanity project that ultimately helped the regime pinpoint his whereabouts. By well-nigh accounts, Mr. Guzmán was not curt on ego. His lawyers had filed papers to copyright his name for a big venture he was working on: a movie about his life. He reached out to several famous Mexican actresses, including Yolanda Andrade, hoping to lure them into his web of influence.
To that finish, Kate del Castillo, another Mexican actress known for her portrayal of a drug boss in the series "La Reina Del Sur," or "The Queen of the Due south," had defenseless his attention. She had been sympathetic to him on social media and Mr. Guzmán instructed a shut associate to contact her.
Earlier Mr. Guzmán'south escape, Ms. del Castillo met with a lawyer in United mexican states City to discuss communications with Mr. Guzmán virtually a potential moving picture. The meetings and communication connected while he was ensconced in the ragged mountains of the Sierra Madre.
The Mexican government were monitoring the phones of Mr. Guzmán and his accomplices, reading the odd and unexpectedly tender exchanges between him and the actress. Mr. Guzmán promised to protect Ms. del Castillo as he would his own eyes, an appreciating phrase Mexican parents ofttimes say of their children.
Even when Ms. del Castillo suggested bringing along Mr. Penn for an interview, the drug lord did not flinch. That was, perchance in part, because he seemed to accept no thought who Mr. Penn is.
Piggybacking on the communications, the authorities tracked down Mr. Guzmán and planned an operation to catch him in early on October. Simply the mission was delayed; they could non risk taking action while Mr. Penn and Ms. del Castillo were in the vicinity.
On October. ii, the parties met for the first time, in the remote reaches of the Golden Triangle, near the metropolis of Cosalá in Sinaloa. Mr. Guzmán left afterward for Durango, where he had a ranch.
Epitome
The circle had already been drawing tighter around Mr. Guzmán, with the regime pressing into the villages and homes of his associates and upending life for many in the areas where he was believed to be hiding. But his meeting with the actors gave them the break they needed: actionable intelligence of his specific location.
6 days later on, a detachment of marines swept in to capture Mr. Guzmán on his ranch, acting with information from American authorities. During the raid, Mr. Guzmán, who always took his ii cooks with him wherever he went, darted into a gully equally he fled, injuring his face and leg.
A Black Hawk helicopter circling the scene spotted him as he darted away, accompanied past his 2 female cooks and holding one of their children in his arms. A Mexican marine Special Forces sniper trained his rifle on the avoiding drug lord, but was told to stand down. Mr. Guzmán, upon seeing the Blackness Hawk, leaned back with the child in his artillery, Mexican officials said, obscuring himself every bit a target. The likelihood of hitting one of the women or the child while firing on Mr. Guzmán was too high, they said.
In the following weeks, operations continued in and effectually areas under Mr. Guzmán's control. The brutal conditions of an approaching winter also concerned the cartel leader — Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, where life could be more comfortable, was under constant surveillance. He needed to get somewhere outside his traditional zone of influence.
Los Mochis fit the bill. In 2013, ability in the city had begun to shift. The splintering Beltran-Levya cartel, long the dominant force, was pushed out, leaving control to Mr. Guzmán'southward Sinaloa cartel.
The government, aware that Mr. Guzmán was planning a trip to an urban centre, followed one of his associates to a business firm in Los Mochis, on a decorated road with a cinema, restaurants and shopping nearby.
Construction before long started. Neighbors periodically dropped past to take a look. A worker even promised one of them whatever actress concrete left after the renovation was completed.
"You lot're welcome to whatever we don't utilise," he told the neighbor. "We're simply doing some repairs."
A Bloody Gun Battle
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Toward the beginning of January, there was unusual activity at the house, with the residents inside breaking from their routines of the previous month, the authorities said. They intercepted phone conversations discussing the imminent arrival of someone known by the aliases of "Grandma" and "Aunt."
And so, at dawn on Jan. 7, a machine pulled upwardly to the firm. The government' certainty that Mr. Guzmán had arrived increased. That dark, afterwards the taco guild, they were nearly sure of it.
Earlier sunrise the next morning, 17 Special Forces marines from the Mexican Navy stormed the house, supported past 50 soldiers charged with surveillance and keeping an eye on the drain system in and effectually the habitation.
Upon breaking through the metal door, they entered what appeared to be a tiny vestibule, surrounded by a maze of doors. Shortly after, gunfire erupted.
"Nosotros've got one injured," a marine yelled, referring to one of his own soldiers, according to video of the raid taken by a soldier'due south helmet photographic camera.
Gunfire continued in the narrow corridors. A commander ordered 1 of the marines to toss a grenade in forepart of ane of the many doors blocking their advance. As the mission continued, two marines advanced down some other hallway, pressing cautiously toward a staircase used by the surviving gunmen to escape to the roof, drawing burn away from the interior of the firm.
By 6:30 a.m., the house was secure. Five of Mr. Guzmán's men were killed in the raid, while four others were arrested. Two women discovered inside, cooks for Mr. Guzmán and his men, were as well placed under arrest. Only the one marine was wounded.
A sweep of the house revealed 2 tunnels: i beneath the refrigerator, a false tunnel meant to misfile the advancing troops. The other was in a bedroom cupboard. A switch by the calorie-free bulb activated a trap door backside the mirror, leading to the road Mr. Guzmán used to flee.
Epitome
On the road, Mr. Guzmán and his associate headed out of town along Highway fifteen. But the federal police were on alert, and they spotted the two men in the Ford Focus and arrested them.
Property two of the deadliest men in all of Mexico made the law nervous. While they waited for the marines, they took the pair out of sight, agape that cartel forces might endeavor to stage a rescue. And with good reason: The police had been tipped that 40 assassins were on their manner to gratis their leader, Mexican police officials said.
They selected the Hotel Doux, an hourly-rate place off the highway. They booked rooms and took pictures of Mr. Guzmán in a filthy vest. The drug lord urged the men to free him. He promised them jobs as business leaders. When they refused, he tried threats.
"You are all going to dice," he warned them, the police officials said.
After the marines arrived, Mr. Guzmán was taken to Mexico City in a helicopter, the capture finally over. Soon everyone was gone, leaving behind just i thing: an unpaid nib, co-ordinate to an employee of the hotel.
After being paraded before a field of news cameras at the Mexico Metropolis airport that night, Mr. Guzmán was ushered onto another helicopter, headed for the aforementioned prison he had escaped from half-dozen months before.
To go on him locked up this time, the authorities said they would rotate his cells, never allowing him to stay anywhere long enough to burrow his mode out again. Vigilance would be enhanced, with more officers and round-the-clock surveillance from extra cameras.
But to many, the longer the drug lord remains in prison in United mexican states, the higher the run a risk of flight. His imprisonment could drag on for a year, mayhap longer, given the numerous — and artistic — injunctions filed by his squad of lawyers to fight his extradition to the United states, where he faces federal indictments on charges that include narcotics trafficking and murder.
One of them, filed in August while Mr. Guzmán was still at big, stated that information technology would exist impossible for Mr. Guzmán to receive a off-white trial in the Usa, given the hostile environment there toward Mexicans.
They cited, as show, the language of a top Republican presidential candidate: Donald J. Trump.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/americas/mexico-el-chapo-sinaloa-sean-penn.html
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