Feds to Chapo: Pay up!
Cocaine kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman should be forced to cough up a whopping $12.7 billion for his crimes, prosecutors said Friday.
Two days after a federal judge rejected Chapo’s demand for a new trial, prosecutors said the government is “entitled” to all proceeds derived from the drug lord’s vast, decades-long drug trafficking operation in the U.S.
They sent a proposed order to U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan that estimated Chapo smuggled nearly 600 tons of cocaine – or 528,276 kilograms – over the border for his Sinaloa cartel. That’s in addition to more than 460 tons of marijuana and hundreds of pounds of heroin, they said.
Chapo sold his cocaine for an average price of $22,354 per kilo, they said, with prices in New York soaring as high as $40,000 per kilo.
Defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman scoffed at the request Friday.
“This is largely an academic exercise as the government has never located a penny of this $12.7 billion in proceeds supposedly generated by Mr. Guzman,” he told the Daily News in an email.
Chapo, 62, didn’t testify at trial, but his wife Emma Coronel called him a “humble and simple” family man and farmer in a TV interview with Telemundo shortly before his Feb. 12 conviction.
Other testimony painted a picture of a fabulously wealthy international playboy with a diamond-encrusted pistol, private jets, multiple mistresses and an Acapulco beach house featuring a mini-zoo stocked with exotic big cats and a personal trainer.
Judge Cogan did not rule on the forfeiture request.
Chapo’s sentencing is July 17.