EL CHAPO: MEXICAN DRUG LORD

                                                           

This Mexican gangster’s real name is Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera in which Guzman is his last name.  He was known as El Chapo which means “Shorty” since he is 168 cm (5 foot 6 inches) in height. The average height of a full grown man is 69.2 inches (175.7 centimeters) or about 5 feet, 9 inches tall. Since he  is fairly fat, the ratio between his weight and his height makes him look fairly short hence he was always referred to as Shorty—El Chapo.  

He Was born in Mexico on the 4^th of April 1957. He will be 62 years old in April 2019. He was born in the town of La Tuna, in the Badiraguato Municipality of Sinaloa in Mexico.

He was a Mexican drug lord and the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal organization named after the Mexican Pacific coast state of Sinaloa where his gang was formed.

Guzmán became Mexico's top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas Guillén of the Gulf Cartel. He was considered the "most powerful drug trafficker in the world.

Each year from 2009 to 2013, Forbes magazine ranked Guzmán as one of the most powerful people in the world, ranking him 41st, 60th, 55th, and 67th^.  Forbes makes its opinion based on the amount of human and financial resources that the persons they investigate have sway over their lives as well as their influence on world events. Since the drugs El Chapo traffics has effects on the lives millions of drug users, it follows that he had considerable sway on the drug user’s lives.

It is believed that he was running the world's biggest drug cartel and in 25 years of his operation, he was smuggling over 155 tons of cocaine into the United States.

Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel was involved in international drug trafficking, money laundering and his organized crime syndicate was established in the mid-1980s, It was  also involved in the production,  smuggling and distribution of Mexican ecstasy methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin across the United States and Europe The cartel was smuggling some $500 million of Colombian cocaine into the US each year by stuffing the powder into pickled-jalapeno cans. The process would leave workers high as a kite as they packed up to 700 six-pound cans with coke at a facility in Mexico City. They got intoxicated because whenever they would press the kilos, it would release cocaine into the air.

Fifty-five percent of the cut went to the Colombians, while Guzman and his crew received 45 percent for the distribution.

Guzman began employing the unconventional method in the early 1990s after police unearthed the secret underground tunnel his cartel used to get drugs across the American border. That tunnel connected a building in Douglas, Arizona to a house in Agua Prieta, Mexico where the entrance to the tunnel was accessible under a pool table that was lifted using hydraulics. One day, someone “left the pool table raised and a Mexican police officer went by and saw it through the window. Guzman was tipped off about the discovery by crooked Mexico City police, chief Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, who had been paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes from the cartel.

Martinez, one of El Chapo’s henchmen recalled in 1987 while visiting El Chapo’s then-boss, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno in prison, where the guards were paid off to let him run the joint. When they arrived at the Reclusorio Preventivo Sur prison in Mexico City, there was a live band playing and the visitors wined and dined like kings while being waited on by other inmates. There was a music group, and they had everything, whatever they would wished to drink such as Whiskey and  Cognac.  They could choose between eating lobster and sirloin and pheasant.

But the visits marked the beginning of the end of the good times for Martinez as El Chapo asked Moreno who was known as El Azul for permission to wage war with the Tijuana Cartel over the death of two of his close friends. Moreno said yes, and “a few days later the bodies started piling up. 

Among the battles was an infamous 1992 attack on the high-end Christine’s nightclub in Puerto Vallarta revealing for the first time that Guzman was there in person, guns blazing. He had arrived with 20 to 25 armed men to kill Tijuana Cartel leaders Ben and Ramon Arellano Felix however the rivals were tipped off in advance.

Guzman (El Chaco) started shooting left and right while the Arellano brothers start shooting from outside to the inside of the nightclub.  Two gunmen and four club goers were killed, but the cartel leaders on both sides survived.

A year later, another epic fire-fight with the Tijuana Cartel finally put a much bigger target on Guzman’s back, when the Arellano Felixes sent gunmen to kill Guzman at the Guadalajara International Airport. Guzman had pulled up at the airport and opened the trunk of his car to pull out a suitcase stuffed with $600,000 when gunmen opened fire.

The drug lord ran into the building with his bodyguard and the suitcase, and dashed through the baggage claim part of the building and jumped onto the luggage belt and after exiting the building, he ran onto the airport’s landing strip and then jumped into a taxi at the other side of the airport and high-tailed out of the area.

But what Guzman didn’t know is that he had parked his car right next to the cardinal and archbishop of Guadalajara, Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who was killed in the initial hail of bullets. The Archbishop of Guadalajara was shot dead in his Grand Marquis amidst a feud between Guzman and the Arellano Felix brothers who ran the Tijuana Cartel.

Public outrage over the holy man’s death led to El Chapo’s arrest and imprisonment. just a month later., Loret de Mola claimed that Guzman gave his version of the murder of Cardinal Posado Ocampos at Guadalajara airport in 1993,

A former associate of El Capo described seeing him brutalize two rivals with a heavy stick for hours, shoot each one in the head, and then order his men to toss the bodies into a giant bonfire.  He said, "I don't want any bones to remain."

Another rival cartel member was first tortured for days by being burned with a clothing iron and then left to suffer in a hen house before he died. He was pretty much decomposing until workers nearby began complaining about the smell.

Guzman ordered his men to dig a grave for another rival. Then the blindfolded captive was brought before the Sinaloa cartel leader. Guzman yelled at the man, grabbed a gun and shot him. The victim was still "gasping for air" when he was tossed into the hole in the ground and buried under a pile of dirt to suffocate.

In 2012, El Chapo bragged that he had killed as many as two or three thousands persons. It may be an exaggeration but no one doubts that he was responsible for the deaths of a great many Mexicans. When when you consider the many deaths of Americans re overdoses of his drugs, the numbers of deaths he is responsible are astronomical. 

He had accrued a net worth of roughly $1billion and was named as the 10^th richest man in Mexico in 2011. The US Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that El Chapo matched the influence and wealth of Pablo Escobar who was another Mexican drug trafficker.

El Chapo high life wasn’t just about drugs. He flew with his friends all over the world to dine at the best restaurants  as well as flying to Macau for gambling and to Switzerland so that Guzman could get Fountain of Youth-like cell-rejuvenation therapy. At the height of the cocaine boom in the early ’90s, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was living so well from his income that  he could afford to have four wives, four planes, a yacht that he named Chapito. a beach house on every shore, houses everywhere and his own private zoo which contained tigers, lions, panthers and deer. One of his men whose name was Martinez said he was told to buy 50 vehicles such as Thunderbirds, Buicks and Cougars, each costing at least $30,000 at the time and to to dole out as gifts to members of their cartel.

 Guzman is said to have claimed that tales of his wealth were exaggerated – “an invention of Forbes” – which regularly included him in its rich list. Loret de Mola published Guzman’s comments in his column in El Universal .Without knowing his source, it is practically impossible to confirm their veracity, but a separate report published by La Jornada corroborated several of Guzman’s declarations.

Guzman was also paranoid. He wire-tapped “enemies, friends” and even girlfriends and gave out bugged pens and calculators to his underlings so he could keep himself aware of what they were saying or planning.

El Chapo’s cartel would pack $10 million in cash in Samsonite suitcases and put them into each of his jet planes almost every month and fly to Mexico City where the money would be then stashed by being placed in his bank accounts.

Asked why he had fled from Culiacan to Mazatlan instead of hiding in the mountains where he grew up, Guzman said that he had planned to head for the mountains, but first he “had to see my girls” – a reference to his beauty queen, wife Emma Coronel and their twin daughters.

Guzman also revealed that he met up briefly with another notorious fugitive, Rafael Caro Quintero, who was controversially released from prison in August 2013 but was still wanted in the United States for his role in the torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985. The pair had lunch together for about an hour in the mountains of Sinaloa, where Caro Quintero was hiding out, Guzman said. He reportedly claimed that the former Guadalajara Cartel kingpin had no interest in returning to the drug trade, as he was old, ill and felt that he had to pay for his sins.

Asked about his rival cartel Los Zetas, Guzman described his late nemesis Heriberto Lazcano Lazcanoas as “my enemy, but a gentleman” and expressed his hatred of Lazcano’s successor Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, alias “Z-40,” who was July 2013. Guzman is also said to have slammed Servando “La Tuta” Gomez and the Knights Templar cartel as “dirty crooks,” claiming the difference between them and him was that “I’m a drug trafficker. I don’t kidnap, I don’t steal, I don’t extort – none of that.”

It has been suggested that El Chapo gave himself up because he had lost of control of the situation and feared being killed which is  why he asked for help via a satellite phone.  The police authorities are said to have tracked him down by tracing his call. He was arrested in Mexico on February 22, 2014 after being  found inside a fourth floor flat and was captured without any gunshots being fired by him or the police.

In Mexico each presidential administration tends to “favor a certain cartel and dismantle another. President Vicente Fox and his successor Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party “undoubtedly” protected “El Chapo” and aided his escape from prison in 2001, but Guzman appeared to have lost the support of the government following the election of Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2012.

It’s important to emphasize that this operation to capture him was carried out during the week that the North American summit took place with Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Toluca.

The World’s most wanted criminal, ‘El Chapo’ Guzman was  arrested in Mazatlan in February 2014. It’s obvious that the operation and the surrender were arranged by the Mexican government.

He was captured alongside a female companion and two other men, without shots being fired. Led by Mexican marines and the DEA, the joint operation to catch the elusive drug lord had been underway for several months.

President Enrique Peña Nieto confirmed the apprehension of Joaquin Guzman Loera in Mazatlan and congratulated the work of Mexico’s security forces.  He announced, “The government of the republic is working to guarantee the security of the state and achieve peace in Mexico.”

The operation against Guzman intensified from February 13 to 17, with the authorities arresting several Sinaloa Federation operatives and raiding the home of Guzman’s ex-wife Griselda Lopez Perez in Culiacan, Sinaloa. Guzman was almost arrested on several occasions throughout the week but he managed to escape through tunnels that linked seven of his safe houses and led out into the city’s sewer system.

Marines backed by two helicopters and six armored vehicles eventually captured Guzman at  6:40 a.m. at the Condo Miramar in Mazatlan, a popular resort to the south of Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa. In total, the authorities arrested 13 of Guzman’s associates and “secured 97 rifles, 36 handguns, two grenade launchers, one rocket launcher, 43 vehicles – of which 19 were armored – 16 of El Chapo’s houses and four of his ranches.

Guzman’s capture was the most significant development in Mexico’s war on drugs to date. The previous two National Action Party (PAN) administrations were widely accused of protecting Guzman and the Sinaloa Federation, while pursuing their rivals, so his arrest represented a major coup for Enrique Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government.

Despite saying it would abandon the PAN’s strategy of pursuing the heads of Mexico’s most powerful gangs, the PRI had then arrested the leaders of Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Federation in the last year, as well as severely weakening the Knights Templar cartel. In doing so, Peña Nieto has essentially beaten his predecessor Felipe Calderon at his own game.

Born into poverty in the town of La Tuna, in the heart of Sinaloa’s drug producing region, in 1957, Guzman learned the ropes of the drug trade under the tutelage of the Guadalajara Cartel kingpin Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo in the early 1980s. He was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 in connection with the murder of Cardinal Posadas Oscampo at Guadalajara International Airport, although many believe Guzman himself was the intended target of the hit.

Since escaping from prison in 2001, Guzman established himself as Mexico’s dominant drug lord. After the death of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 Guzman assumed the mantle of the FBI and Interpol’s most wanted criminal and became the first man since Al Capone to be named Chicago’s Public Enemy #1.

The United States State Department had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. The latter would represent more of a punishment, given that Guzman reportedly had access to drugs, prostitutes and restaurant food in Jalisco’s maximum-security Puente Grande, where he would often throw wild parties and invite friends and relatives over, prior to his escape in 2001.

He was eventually recaptured and extradited to the United States for trial in New York City. The U.S. authorities escorted Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, in New York.  On January. 19, 2017. Then in 2017, Guzman was tried for his crimes in new York City.

 weighing Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s fate had entered its second week of deliberations. The purported Mexican kingpin appeared to be enjoying America’s jury process.

Guzman has effectively been isolated during his detention. He did not sit in the courtroom while the panel of eight women and four men met in a private room to discuss the 10 counts he faced in a decades-long cocaine trafficking conspiracy.

When the jurors had questions for the judge, the questions were delivered via notes. There were three notes which gave, a chance fordor El Chapo  to interact with people. After U.S. Marshals led Guzman into the courtroom. , He ebulliently shook his lawyers’ hands, even laughing. He waved at his devoted wife, one-time beauty queen Emma Coronel.

Jurors asked to hear testimony from two government witnesses, the latest in several such requests. They also asked a question on how to handle the first count against Guzman: engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.

The fact that jurors had not yet returned a verdict, coupled with requests for testimony and clarification on procedure in a case with overwhelming evidence, the delay for a verdict had prompted some to ask what’s taking so long?

Daniel R. Alonso, an attorney at Exiger who has headed the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, cautioned against reading into the length of deliberations.

He said, ““It’s a very complicated case factually,” Alonso said, even though “it’s simple conceptually: the guy was a drug lord. It is lots of counts. It is lots of witnesses. It is lots of drugs. If you have a conscientious jury, it’s not odd at all for them to methodically go through the evidence.” unquote

The cartel still controls a worldwide web of contacts that can move Colombian cocaine to Cameroon and Mexican meth cooks to Malaysia. It also controls seaports to get drugs and precursor chemicals shipped in from around the globe; employs labs and chemists to process them; bribes corrupt cops to ensure the drugs can be moved to the border; has engineered multimillion-dollar tunnels to smuggle tonnes of marijuana and cocaine under the frontier; and pays "mules" to ferry shipments in cars and trucks.

It also has armies of hitmen and enforcers who moonlight in extortion and kidnapping, plus money launderers, front corporations and political contacts. There's also a world of professionals such as architects, jewellers and even musical groups, who provide entertainment and launder money.

Perhaps most important, Sinaloa continues to control what's referred to as the "last mile" in the United States, using its wholesale distribution network to get drugs into the hands of local gangs and street dealers.

All 23 of the divisions have an investigation at least at the local level that ties back to the Sinaloa cartel," said Will Glaspy, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent in charge of the Houston division who has held posts along the U.S.-Mexico border from California to Texas. "Their distribution network is that well established in the United States.”

 At the cartel's stronghold in the mountains of Sinaloa state, it's business as usual for Ismael (El Mayo) Zambada, who has helped run the cartel since it was founded over three decades ago. He has a reputation as a level-headed, old-style capo known more for negotiating than for bloodshed. Maybe there will be less killings in the drug operations.

Guzman was convicted of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation. At the time of the writing of this article, he hasn’t been sentenced but I am convinced that he will be sentenced to prison for the rest of his natural life. I know the prison that he will be serving his sentence in. It is in a super max prison in Colorado. He like all prisoners in that prison will serve his sentence in solitary confinement.  If he dies in that prison, it will be of boredom.