Thirteen years after he escaped from a high-security prison in Guadalajara, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted drug cartel leader, is back behind bars.
Mexican Navy commandos apprehended Guzman at an apartment complex overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the resort city of Mazatlan in the early hours of February 22. Not a single shot was fired during the operation, which involved 65 troops and security officers.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto quickly acknowledged Guzman’s arrest on his Twitter account, praising Mexican security institutions for their success. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder later called Guzman’s detention “a landmark achievement.”
Within hours of his arrest, Guzman was presented to the media, presumably to allay any doubts that authorities had nabbed the wrong man. Frog-marched by marines to a waiting helicopter at the heavily guarded Mexico City airport, the 56-year-old Guzman was easily recognizable, not appearing to have aged significantly during his years on the lam.
The presumed leader of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, Guzman was detained in Guatemala in June 1993 and sentenced to 20 years and nine months in prison. He spent seven and a half years behind bars before making a bold escape from the Puente Grande federal penitentiary, allegedly by hiding in a laundry cart.
Mexican and U.S. authorities say that despite a massive manhunt Guzman has been able to expand his narcotics empire over the past 13 years.
In 2009, Forbes magazine named him on their list of the World’s Most Powerful People and ranked him as the 67th wealthiest person in the world.
His notoriety propelled him to cult-like status, especially in Sinaloa, the state of his birth, where many people without links to the narcotics trade are sympathetic toward the local drug cartel, said to plough much of its profits back to poor communities.
The Mexican government’s intense manhunt for Guzman received a break in January when several of his lieutenants were arrested in a property belonging to his former wife, Griselda Lopez.
Further arrests of close aides last week led to the discovery of a series of heavily protected properties linked to the sewer system by tunnels that authorities say Guzman used to evade capture. Over the past week, Mexican armed forces secured 16 properties, including large arsenal of weapons and armored vehicles.
Marines were within minutes of capturing Guzman in one of the houses last week, but he managed to slip out through a hidden hatch under a bath tub as the officers battled to open the reinforced steel front door.
Guzman then made his way to Mazatlan but his phone calls were being tracked and authorities were close on his heels. Marines used heat imaging equipment to wait until he was asleep, along with his beauty queen wife, before they made their swoop.
For years, Guzman had employed a small army of guards and used some of the latest counter-surveillance gadgets to evade capture. In the end, he was caught virtually alone and unprotected.
The immediate future of Guzman is not clear. Following his arrest he was taken to the high-security Altiplano federal prison near Toluca in the State of Mexico, where he faces many hours of interrogation.
The United States placed a five-million-dollar bounty on Guzman’s head and he faces criminal charges for drug smuggling offenses in Chicago, Texas and Brooklyn. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn said this weekend that they will be filing an extradition request to bring Guzman to face justice.
However, Guzman may first have to complete his prison sentence in Mexico, as well as answer additional charges for criminal activities carried out in this country over the past 13 years.
This week, attorneys acting for Guzman quickly filed an injunction to block any move for extradition. But any decision on extradition is expected to be a political rather than judicial one. There are several reasons why sending him to the United States to serve his sentence might be more prudent, some U.S. officials pointed out this week. Many feel that he would be unlikely to escape from a super-maximum security jail in the United States, as opposed to one in Mexico where officers are more open to bribery. It is unlikely that Guzman will provide much intelligence to Mexican authorities, but U.S. officials believe they could exact greater pressure on him and his family to reveal valuable information on the drug trade and his rivals.
The Peña Nieto administration has received plenty of praise for the capture of one of the world’s most wanted criminals, particularly from abroad. The reaction in Mexico has been more muted, with most people accepting the reality that the inter-cartel violence will continue as before. Neither does Guzman’s arrest mean the flow of narcotics to the United States will subside any time soon, analysts agree. Some also suggest that a bloody turf war will soon emerge as rival cartels fight to fill the space left open by Guzman’s demise.
And such is Guzman’s aura in the state of his birth, that hundreds of people marched on the streets of Culiacan on Wednesday to demand his release, arguing that he provides much needed jobs in poor mountain areas.