Drug Kingpin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman Captured

22 Feb, 2014

Mexico’s most wanted man, drug cartel kingpin Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, was captured on Saturday with help from U.S. agencies in a major victory for the government in a long, brutal drugs war.

Guzman, known as “El Chapo” (Shorty) in Spanish, has long run Mexico’s infamous Sinaloa Cartel. Over the past decade, he has emerged as one of the world’s most powerful organized crime bosses.

He was caught in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa in an early morning operation without a shot being fired, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said, adding that Guzman’s identity had been 100 percent confirmed.

It is a political triumph for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office in late 2012. Pena Nieto confirmed the capture via Twitter earlier on Saturday and congratulated his security forces. The U.S. government also applauded the arrest.

Guzman’s cartel has smuggled billions of dollars worth of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines into the United States, and fought vicious turf wars with other Mexican gangs.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting, especially in western and northern regions that have long been key smuggling routes.

Many of the victims have been tortured and beheaded and their bodies dumped in a public place or in mass graves. The violence has ravaged border cities and even beach resorts like Acapulco.

Authorities said Guzman, 56, was captured in a pre-dawn raid on a seaside condominium in the northwestern resort of Mazatlan, and then flown to Mexico City.

Wearing a cream shirt and dark jeans and with a black moustache, he was frog-marched in front of reporters on live TV, bound for prison.

It was the first public glimpse of the elusive kingpin since he escaped from prison in 2001.

The 5-foot 6-inch (1.7-metre) Guzman looked briefly toward TV cameras waiting on the tarmac outside the Marines’ hangar at Mexico City’s airport, before his head was shoved back down by a soldier wearing a face mask.

Murillo Karam said security forces had nearly caught Guzman days earlier, but he gave them the slip.

“The doors of the house … were reinforced with steel and so in the minutes it took us to open them, it allowed for an escape through tunnels,” Murillo Karam said.

They then tracked him down again and waited for the right moment to strike, he said, adding that “some U.S. agencies” had helped in capturing Guzman.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder described the arrest as “a landmark achievement, and a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States.”

“The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence, and corruption,” Holder said in a statement.

Reuters 

REUTERS/HENRY ROMERO

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