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‘Movie deal’ brought Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman unstuck
JOAQUIN “El Chapo” Guzman has been recaptured by Mexican authorities and now faces extradition to the US as it has been revealed the drug kingpin had met in secret with actor Sean Penn for his first ever interview.
Mexican officials now say the meeting at Guzman’s hideout with Penn for an interview with the Rolling Stone magazine led investigators to the world’s most-wanted man’s whereabouts in a rural part of Durango state.
The interview took place in a jungle clearing atop a mountain at an undisclosed location in Mexico with actress Kate del Castillo also present, who is said to have brokered the meeting.
Penn and del Castillo are now both under investigation by Mexican authorities for the interview, USA’s ABC News reports.
The hide-out was attacked days after the first interview took place so subsequent interviews were conducted via phone and video.
In footage published by Rolling Stone, Guzman is wearing a print blue shirt and dark baseball cap, but his face is clearly visible. Accompanying the article is a picture of Penn shaking hands with Guzman. Penn writes that the 58-year-old
Guzman gave him a big hug when they first met at a Mexican jungle clearing and had a seven-hour sitdown.
In the interview, when asked about whether he is responsible for the high level of drug addiction in the world Guzman denies it: “No, that is false, because the day I don’t exist, it’s not going to decrease in any way at all. Drug trafficking? That’s false.”
Asked about who is to blame for drug trafficking, Guzman is quoted as saying: “If there was no consumption, there would be no sales. It is true that consumption, day after day, becomes bigger and bigger. So it sells and sells.”
Guzman said he started out in business shortly after he turned six, selling oranges and soft drinks. He told Penn by 15 he had begun to grow marijuana and poppies because there were “no job opportunities and no other way to provide for his impoverished family.
“Unfortunately, where I grew up, there was and there is no other way to survive,” Guzman said.
Now he said, “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
This appears to be the first admission from Guzman that he is in the drug business, having previously denied it.
The interview also details Guzman’s most recent escape from jail.
In the Rolling Stone article Penn describes the lengths he went to to maintain security while arranging to meet Guzman. He described labelling cheap “burner” phones, “one per contact, one per day, destroy, burn, buy, balancing levels of encryption, mirroring through Blackphones, anonymous email addresses, unsent messages accessed in draft form.”
“There is no question in my mind but that DEA and the Mexican government are tracking our movements,” Penn said.
It is not clear why after so many years of remaining tight lipped Guzman decided to be interviewed but Penn’s stardom and Guzman’s desire to have a film made about him could have something to do with it.
A Mexican official said authorities knew that US actor Sean Penn met with Guzman in October before his capture this week.
The meeting between Penn and Guzman was a part of the investigation that helped lead to Friday’s recapture of the world’s most wanted criminal, the official said on condition of anonymity, declining to give more details.
“Mexican authorities had knowledge of this meeting,” the official said, explaining that it helped locate Guzman’s whereabouts.
‘El Chapo’s’ recapture
Guzman was finally recaptured due partly to the discovery that the fugitive Sinaloa cartel kingpin had contacted people in the film industry about making a movie about his life.
“An important aspect in determining his location was having discovered Guzman Loera’s intention to film a biopic, to which end he had contacted actresses, actors and producers,” Arely Gomez told reporters at the Mexico City International Airport.
She said surveillance work allowed investigators “to document the meetings of (Guzman’s) attorneys with these people.”
The Attorney-General said the 58-year-old Guzman, who had escaped from a Mexican maximum-security prison last July through a tunnel dug to his cell, was spotted by helicopter in Pueblo Nuevo, Durango state, in October but managed to escape down a ravine.
She added that security forces had been unable to shoot at him on that occasion because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl.
The New York Post reports that investigators then learned through stepped-up intelligence efforts that Guzman planned to move to an urban area,” Gomez said, adding that starting in December a month-long surveillance operation had been set up at a home in Los Mochis, a Pacific coastal city in Guzman’s native state of Sinaloa.
After unusual movements were detected in recent days, investigators became certain that Guzman was inside the residence and made their move early on Friday, according to Gomez, who said the raid resulted in a gunbattle in which five gunmen were killed, six people were arrested and one marine was wounded.
Guzman escaped through the city’s sewer system along with his security chief, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, “a highly dangerous criminal” who also was one of the Mexican government’s most-wanted fugitives.
With marines in pursuit, they managed to get to the street through a manhole and flee in stolen vehicles, Gomez said, adding that the federal forces tracked them down on the Los Mochis-Navojoa highway, apprehended them and took them to a roadside motel while waiting for reinforcements.
She added that security forces had been unable to shoot at him on that occasion because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl.
The New York Post reports that investigators then learned through stepped-up intelligence efforts that Guzman planned to move to an urban area,” Gomez said, adding that starting in December a month-long surveillance operation had been set up at a home in Los Mochis, a Pacific coastal city in Guzman’s native state of Sinaloa.
After unusual movements were detected in recent days, investigators became certain that Guzman was inside the residence and made their move early on Friday, according to Gomez, who said the raid resulted in a gunbattle in which five gunmen were killed, six people were arrested and one marine was wounded.
Guzman escaped through the city’s sewer system along with his security chief, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, “a highly dangerous criminal” who also was one of the Mexican government’s most-wanted fugitives.
With marines in pursuit, they managed to get to the street through a manhole and flee in stolen vehicles, Gomez said, adding that the federal forces tracked them down on the Los Mochis-Navojoa highway, apprehended them and took them to a roadside motel while waiting for reinforcements.
The Attonrey-General said Guzman would be returned to the same Altiplano maximum-security prison outside Mexico City from which he escaped on July 11 of last year.
The drug lord had earlier busted out of a Mexican prison in 2001 and evaded authorities for more than 13 years before being recaptured on February 22, 2014, in the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan.
Extradition to the US
Mexican authorities have announced they will begin the process of extraditing Guzman to the United States, as his lawyer vowed a tough legal battle.
President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government had balked at extraditing Guzman prior to his prison break in July but the administration has changed tack after recapturing him on Friday.
The attorney general’s office said it received two US extradition requests last year on a slew of charges, including drug trafficking and murder, and that it later obtained arrest warrants to ship him across the border.
“With Guzman Loera’s recapture, the respective extradition proceedings will have to start,” the office said in a statement, though it did not indicate when the hearings would start.
Lawyers for Guzman will have three days to file objections and 20 more days to prove them, though that timeframe can be extended, prosecutors said, vowing to fight any appeals.
Once a judge rules on the extradition, the decision is sent to the foreign ministry, which will have 20 days to validate it. Guzman would have another chance after that to legally challenge the decision.
One of Guzman’s attorneys, Juan Pablo Badillo, vowed to take the case up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“A legal battle has begun in the constitutional framework that will be very serious, very tough,” Badillo told reporters outside the Altiplano prison near Mexico City, where Guzman was sent following his arrest on Friday.
“He shouldn’t be extradited because Mexico has a fair Constitution,” he said. US President Barack Obama’s administration congratulated Mexico following the arrest but did not publicly indicate whether it would press Pena Nieto to extradite Guzman.
US politicians called for his immediate extradition as he faces charges in a half-dozen states.
Some questioned Mexico’s ability to hold on to a man who fled prison through a tunnel under his cell’s shower in July and fled from another penitentiary in a laundry cart in 2001.
“Given that ‘El Chapo’ has already escaped from Mexican prison twice, this third opportunity to bring him to justice cannot be squandered,” said US senator and Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio.
A Mexican federal official defended the decision to send Guzman back to Altiplano, saying measures were taken to improve security, including the installation of metal rods under the floor of prison cells.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/world/north-...k/news-story/bf938db2b6c1c32e028af37e9b106bb6
JOAQUIN “El Chapo” Guzman has been recaptured by Mexican authorities and now faces extradition to the US as it has been revealed the drug kingpin had met in secret with actor Sean Penn for his first ever interview.
Mexican officials now say the meeting at Guzman’s hideout with Penn for an interview with the Rolling Stone magazine led investigators to the world’s most-wanted man’s whereabouts in a rural part of Durango state.
The interview took place in a jungle clearing atop a mountain at an undisclosed location in Mexico with actress Kate del Castillo also present, who is said to have brokered the meeting.
Penn and del Castillo are now both under investigation by Mexican authorities for the interview, USA’s ABC News reports.
The hide-out was attacked days after the first interview took place so subsequent interviews were conducted via phone and video.
In footage published by Rolling Stone, Guzman is wearing a print blue shirt and dark baseball cap, but his face is clearly visible. Accompanying the article is a picture of Penn shaking hands with Guzman. Penn writes that the 58-year-old
Guzman gave him a big hug when they first met at a Mexican jungle clearing and had a seven-hour sitdown.
In the interview, when asked about whether he is responsible for the high level of drug addiction in the world Guzman denies it: “No, that is false, because the day I don’t exist, it’s not going to decrease in any way at all. Drug trafficking? That’s false.”
Asked about who is to blame for drug trafficking, Guzman is quoted as saying: “If there was no consumption, there would be no sales. It is true that consumption, day after day, becomes bigger and bigger. So it sells and sells.”
Guzman said he started out in business shortly after he turned six, selling oranges and soft drinks. He told Penn by 15 he had begun to grow marijuana and poppies because there were “no job opportunities and no other way to provide for his impoverished family.
“Unfortunately, where I grew up, there was and there is no other way to survive,” Guzman said.
Now he said, “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
This appears to be the first admission from Guzman that he is in the drug business, having previously denied it.
The interview also details Guzman’s most recent escape from jail.
In the Rolling Stone article Penn describes the lengths he went to to maintain security while arranging to meet Guzman. He described labelling cheap “burner” phones, “one per contact, one per day, destroy, burn, buy, balancing levels of encryption, mirroring through Blackphones, anonymous email addresses, unsent messages accessed in draft form.”
“There is no question in my mind but that DEA and the Mexican government are tracking our movements,” Penn said.
It is not clear why after so many years of remaining tight lipped Guzman decided to be interviewed but Penn’s stardom and Guzman’s desire to have a film made about him could have something to do with it.
A Mexican official said authorities knew that US actor Sean Penn met with Guzman in October before his capture this week.
The meeting between Penn and Guzman was a part of the investigation that helped lead to Friday’s recapture of the world’s most wanted criminal, the official said on condition of anonymity, declining to give more details.
“Mexican authorities had knowledge of this meeting,” the official said, explaining that it helped locate Guzman’s whereabouts.
‘El Chapo’s’ recapture
Guzman was finally recaptured due partly to the discovery that the fugitive Sinaloa cartel kingpin had contacted people in the film industry about making a movie about his life.
“An important aspect in determining his location was having discovered Guzman Loera’s intention to film a biopic, to which end he had contacted actresses, actors and producers,” Arely Gomez told reporters at the Mexico City International Airport.
She said surveillance work allowed investigators “to document the meetings of (Guzman’s) attorneys with these people.”
The Attorney-General said the 58-year-old Guzman, who had escaped from a Mexican maximum-security prison last July through a tunnel dug to his cell, was spotted by helicopter in Pueblo Nuevo, Durango state, in October but managed to escape down a ravine.
She added that security forces had been unable to shoot at him on that occasion because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl.
The New York Post reports that investigators then learned through stepped-up intelligence efforts that Guzman planned to move to an urban area,” Gomez said, adding that starting in December a month-long surveillance operation had been set up at a home in Los Mochis, a Pacific coastal city in Guzman’s native state of Sinaloa.
After unusual movements were detected in recent days, investigators became certain that Guzman was inside the residence and made their move early on Friday, according to Gomez, who said the raid resulted in a gunbattle in which five gunmen were killed, six people were arrested and one marine was wounded.
Guzman escaped through the city’s sewer system along with his security chief, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, “a highly dangerous criminal” who also was one of the Mexican government’s most-wanted fugitives.
With marines in pursuit, they managed to get to the street through a manhole and flee in stolen vehicles, Gomez said, adding that the federal forces tracked them down on the Los Mochis-Navojoa highway, apprehended them and took them to a roadside motel while waiting for reinforcements.
She added that security forces had been unable to shoot at him on that occasion because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl.
The New York Post reports that investigators then learned through stepped-up intelligence efforts that Guzman planned to move to an urban area,” Gomez said, adding that starting in December a month-long surveillance operation had been set up at a home in Los Mochis, a Pacific coastal city in Guzman’s native state of Sinaloa.
After unusual movements were detected in recent days, investigators became certain that Guzman was inside the residence and made their move early on Friday, according to Gomez, who said the raid resulted in a gunbattle in which five gunmen were killed, six people were arrested and one marine was wounded.
Guzman escaped through the city’s sewer system along with his security chief, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, “a highly dangerous criminal” who also was one of the Mexican government’s most-wanted fugitives.
With marines in pursuit, they managed to get to the street through a manhole and flee in stolen vehicles, Gomez said, adding that the federal forces tracked them down on the Los Mochis-Navojoa highway, apprehended them and took them to a roadside motel while waiting for reinforcements.
The Attonrey-General said Guzman would be returned to the same Altiplano maximum-security prison outside Mexico City from which he escaped on July 11 of last year.
The drug lord had earlier busted out of a Mexican prison in 2001 and evaded authorities for more than 13 years before being recaptured on February 22, 2014, in the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan.
Extradition to the US
Mexican authorities have announced they will begin the process of extraditing Guzman to the United States, as his lawyer vowed a tough legal battle.
President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government had balked at extraditing Guzman prior to his prison break in July but the administration has changed tack after recapturing him on Friday.
The attorney general’s office said it received two US extradition requests last year on a slew of charges, including drug trafficking and murder, and that it later obtained arrest warrants to ship him across the border.
“With Guzman Loera’s recapture, the respective extradition proceedings will have to start,” the office said in a statement, though it did not indicate when the hearings would start.
Lawyers for Guzman will have three days to file objections and 20 more days to prove them, though that timeframe can be extended, prosecutors said, vowing to fight any appeals.
Once a judge rules on the extradition, the decision is sent to the foreign ministry, which will have 20 days to validate it. Guzman would have another chance after that to legally challenge the decision.
One of Guzman’s attorneys, Juan Pablo Badillo, vowed to take the case up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“A legal battle has begun in the constitutional framework that will be very serious, very tough,” Badillo told reporters outside the Altiplano prison near Mexico City, where Guzman was sent following his arrest on Friday.
“He shouldn’t be extradited because Mexico has a fair Constitution,” he said. US President Barack Obama’s administration congratulated Mexico following the arrest but did not publicly indicate whether it would press Pena Nieto to extradite Guzman.
US politicians called for his immediate extradition as he faces charges in a half-dozen states.
Some questioned Mexico’s ability to hold on to a man who fled prison through a tunnel under his cell’s shower in July and fled from another penitentiary in a laundry cart in 2001.
“Given that ‘El Chapo’ has already escaped from Mexican prison twice, this third opportunity to bring him to justice cannot be squandered,” said US senator and Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio.
A Mexican federal official defended the decision to send Guzman back to Altiplano, saying measures were taken to improve security, including the installation of metal rods under the floor of prison cells.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/world/north-...k/news-story/bf938db2b6c1c32e028af37e9b106bb6
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")