El Chapo: What to know about convicted drug kingpin
Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is the longtime head of the multibillion-dollar Sinaloa drug cartel.
Known as Mexico’s most infamous drug lord, Guzman was convicted in New York on Feb. 12, 2019, of working an industrial-scale smuggling operation. He was sentenced to life in jail in July of that 12 months.
At the trial, Guzman’s legal professionals argued he was the autumn man for different kingpins who had been higher at paying off high Mexican politicians and regulation enforcement officers to shield them whereas the U.S. authorities seemed the opposite manner. They mentioned witnesses’ descriptions of El Chapo main a lavish way of life that includes personal planes, beachfront villas and a personal zoo had been overblown, and that there’s no likelihood the U.S. authorities might acquire the multibillion-dollar forfeiture.
Guzman, whose two dramatic jail escapes in Mexico fed right into a legend that he and his household had been all however untouchable, was extradited to the United States in 2017.
EL CHAPO’S WIFE ORDERED HELD WITHOUT BAIL FOLLOWING INTERNATIONAL DRUG TRAFFICKING ARREST
As Mexico’s strongest drug lord, he ran a cartel answerable for smuggling mountains of cocaine and different medication into the United States throughout his 25-year reign, prosecutors mentioned in court docket papers.
Under Guzman’s management, the Sinaloa cartel – one of many world’s largest drug trafficking group – was answerable for a number of murders and smuggling mountains of cocaine and different medication into the United States. Prosecutors additionally beforehand mentioned his “army of sicarios,” or “hit men,” was underneath orders to kidnap, torture and kill anybody who bought in his manner.
In this courtroom sketch, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, second from proper, listens to his sentence through interpreter whereas surrounded by U.S. Marshals and flanked by his protection lawyer Marc Fernich, throughout his sentencing in federal court docket, Wednesday, July 17, 2019, in New York. (AP)
He provided no regret on the time of his conviction and, as an alternative, took a jab on the Brooklyn federal court docket choose by accusing him of constructing a mockery of the U.S. justice system in refusing to order a brand new trial primarily based on unsubstantiated allegations of juror misconduct.
“My case was stained and you denied me a fair trial when the whole world was watching,” Guzman mentioned by means of an interpreter.
EL CHAPO’S WIFE ARRESTED ON DRUG TRAFFICKING CHARGES
He is now serving a life sentence on the federal supermax jail facility in Florence, Colorado, the place inmates are held alone for 23 hours a day and have little human interplay.
Guzman’s jail breaks raised severe questions about whether or not Mexico’s justice system was able to holding him accountable.
He first escaped from jail in 2001 after which spent greater than a decade on the run earlier than he was recaptured, solely to escape once more in 2015 through a mile-long tunnel dug to the bathe in his cell.
The 2015 getaway was extremely embarrassing for the federal government of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. He allegedly escaped from the Altiplano jail by means of an entry underneath the bathe in his cell to a mile-long lit tunnel with a motorbike on rails.
Recently launched court docket papers reveal how the in depth plot included buying a chunk of land close to the jail, firearms and an armored truck, and smuggling him a GPS watch so co-conspirators might “pinpoint his exact whereabouts so as to construct the tunnel with an entry point accessible to him.”
EL CHAPO ADMITTED WOMEN WERE HIS ONLY ADDICTION
It was whereas on the lam the second time, in fall 2015, that he held a secret assembly with actors Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo. The encounter was the topic of a prolonged article Penn printed in Rolling Stone, proper after Mexican marines re-arrested Guzman within the western state of Sinaloa.
In the interview, Guzman was unapologetic about his prison actions, saying he had turned to drug trafficking at age 15 merely to survive.
Emma Coronel Aispuro (Alexandria Sheriff’s Office)
(Alexandria Sheriff’s Office)
“The only way to have money to buy food, to survive, is to grow poppy, marijuana, and at that age, I began to grow it, to cultivate it and to sell it. That is what I can tell you,” he was quoted as saying in Penn’s article.
Guzman is married to 31-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro, a former magnificence queen who’s greater than 30 years youthful than her husband. The two have been collectively since a minimum of 2007, and their twin daughters had been born in 2011.
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On Monday, Coronel Aispuro was arrested at Dulles International Airport in Virginia and accused of serving to her husband run the cartel and plot his audacious 2015 escape.
She is a twin citizen and was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana within the U.S. She was ordered held behind bars throughout her Tuesday court docket look.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
