Series explores drug lord
TABIO, COLOMBIA While the real Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman is locked up in a cold, tiny cell in New York, his career as a drug lord apparently over, his fictional counterpart is free and in top form in Colombia, where the Univision network and Netflix are filming a television series about his life.
Ironically, Guzman’s rearrest in 2016 — after two dramatic prison escapes — has created such a bloody power struggle for his Sinaloa cartel in Mexico that the series’ producers thought it would be safer to film in Colombia, the country that used to be the epicentre of the hemisphere’s drug violence.
The U.S. extradited Guzman in January, and his lawyers complain the conditions he faces at a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial are so restrictive they violate his rights.
The filming in Colombia was so cloaked in secrecy that the crew told locals they were filming a mythical TV soap opera, Dolores de Amor, roughly The Pains of Love. Its real title is fairly self-explanatory: El Chapo.
At the time filming started, Guzman was still in Mexico and the series’ location was shifted for security reasons, said producer Daniel Posada. Colombia may also be a little less legally complicated.
Guzman employed a cadre of lawyers to file seemingly endless legal appeals in Mexico. One of the lawyers, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, suggested the producers could suffer legal consequences for using Guzman’s name and story without his permission.
“If they are producing something that (Guzman) has not authorized, if they start attacking him, or publishing things from his private life, then clearly there will be a legal response,” Rodriguez said.
When Netflix and Univision announced the series last year, they said it is “based on the life story of one of the world’s most notorious criminals.”
Another Guzman lawyer, Andres Granados, told The Associated Press at the time that the two networks would have to pay for the right to use Guzman’s name and nickname, which can be translated as “Shorty.”
Guzman earlier gave rights to his life story to Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who arranged a secret 2015 meeting with the then-fugitive drug boss and actor Sean Penn. Del Castillo hasn’t said what she would do with those rights. Posada said he hasn’t received any threats. The series is scheduled to have its U.S. premiere on Univision April 23, and a couple of months later will have a worldwide release on Netflix. Marco de la O, a 38-yearold Mexican stage actor, said “it was a challenge to play Chapo, because of his complexity.” Asked if he plays Guzman as a hero or a villain, De la O said: “I can’t judge him.”