Tag: Gangland

Mexican Cartel Leader El Chapo Wants To Finish His Prison Sentence In The U.S. 

“El Chapo” and his right hand man captured following manhunt.

According to The Daily Mail, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, undoubtedly one the world’s most powerful, violent and feared druglords is strongly contemplating pleading guilty in the U.S. for his international cartel operations under one condition: that he spend his time behind bars in a minimum security U.S. prison. 


To some the request seems outlandish not only because of the complexity of his crime syndicate which has wreaked havoc for decades from Mexico to the U.S., but also because Mr. Guzman has escaped not one, but two maximum security prisons in Mexico. His first time ‘on the run’ spanned 13 years!

Only time will tell if the U.S. will consider his request and allow him more than ‘one hour of sunshine’ a day in minimum security prison.

Via The Daily Mail:

The arrest of one of El Chapo most trusted advisers comes as it is claimed the drugs lord is willing to plead guilty in the U.S. – as long as he is not jailed in a maximum-security prison.

The Sinaloa cartel leader believes he would enjoy better treatment in an American cell compared to the ‘extreme freezing conditions’ of his current Mexican lock-up where he ‘fears for his life’, his lawyer revealed in an exclusive interview with Univision last week.

However, he will only plead guilty if US prosecutors promise to spare him from its most brutal institutions ‘where he would not see the light of the sun for more than an hour a day’.

Mexican and U.S. officials want to have El Chapo tried and imprisoned in America because of his track record of escaping from Mexican prisons.

Since being recaptured in January, the Sinaloa cartel leader has been held in the same maximum-security prison he escaped from just outside Mexico City.

In a bid to prevent another breakout, Mexican jail workers have reportedly been moving El Chapo from cell-to-cell on a daily basis.

Actor Sean Penn Regrets El Chapo Interview

A picture of Sean Penn and “El Chapo” displayed on Rolling Stone’s website after the magazine published an interview by the actor after the drug lord’s arrest.

“Let me be clear. My article has failed.” -Sean Penn 

Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn on Friday rejected Mexico’s claim that his secret meeting with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was crucial to the drug kingpin’s recapture, saying officials were trying to put him in the crosshairs of the feared cartel.

Penn also told talk show host Charlie Rose that he regrets the fallout from the Rolling Stone article based on his interview with Guzman. 

Their meeting in a jungle hideout was the first interview anyone scored with the fugitive drug lord, and Penn said he had hoped it would spur a broader discussion on the drug war.

In Penn’s first major television interview about the meeting, Rose asked the actor whether he believed Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government had deliberately sought to credit him with Guzman’s capture to put him at risk from the Sinaloa Cartel.

“Yes. There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was… ‘essential’ to his capture. We know the Mexican government, they clearly were humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did.” 

Read more about Sean Penn’s controversial meeting that may have taken down Mexico’s most powerful cartel boss on Fortune. 

Cartel Leader El Chapo Re-Captured In Mexico 

   
CNN– Drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been captured, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Friday via Twitter.

“Mission Accomplished,” the President wrote. “We have him.”

Mexican Federal Police spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas confirmed Guzman’s capture to CNN.

Nicknamed “Shorty” for his height, Guzman has escaped twice from Mexican custody. The first was from a maximum-security prison in 2001 when he reportedly hid in a laundry cart.

The latest instance came when he broke out of another maximum-security prison in Almoloya de Juarez through a mile-long underground tunnel in July.

He then traveled north about 140 kilometers (85 miles) to San Juan del Rio, where two small planes were awaiting his arrival and took off from an airstrip, Attorney General Arely Gomez has said.

Since then, he’d been rumored to be many places, including as far away as Argentina. In October, authorities revealed they were hot on Guzman’s trail, only to have him slip out of sight, though not before apparently breaking his leg.

Gomez said last fall that 34 people have been detained in connection with Guzman’s breakout last year, including the drug lord’s brother-in-law.

The Sinaloa cartel chief’s high profile and ability to elude authorities have been held up as an example of Mexico’s reputed ineptitude in dealing with powerful drug cartels.

The breakout also spurred major criticism about the Mexican government’s ability to safeguard such a notorious criminal, with some saying he should have been held in the United States.

Read more about the capture of Mexico’s biggest drug lord on CNN