EL CHAPO ARRIVES IN NYC
Drug lord lands after Mextradition
“El Chapo” has made his Big Apple debut — and New York’s lady inmates are loving it.
Notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was extradited by Mexico to New York Thursday night as a slap in the face of Donald Trump hours before he was to take office, sources told The Post.
“Mexico wanted to get it done before the proverbial wall was built — both with bricks and bombastic diplomacy by the Trump administration,” said a federal lawenforcement source.
“Mexico wanted to get this done with a Justice Department it knows and trusts, that understands the gravity and implications of the crimes that ‘El Chapo’ has been a part of.
“That’s not to say that the next Justice Department won’t be just as competent. But with the Trump administration, everything is a question mark.”
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department confirmed on Twitter Thursday evening that the notoriously slippery Sinaloa Cartel boss was placed on a flight for the US at around 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
His plane landed at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma (pictured) at around 10 p.m.
Guzmán was driven to a federal lockup in Manhattan, where female prisoners gave him a rock-star welcome, cheering, “Chapo! Chapo!” from the windows of their cells as the motorcade pulled up.
He will be taken to Brooklyn’s federal court Friday to face charges that include murder, kidnapping and drug trafficking, sources said.
The 5-foot-6 Guzmán had been imprisoned near the northern border city of Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, after being recaptured a year ago following his second jailbreak.
A law-enforcement source said the US Drug Enforcement Administration took custody of Guzmán.
He was shackled on the flight and accompanied by armed DEA agents “shadowing his every move,” the source said.
Guzmán had spent 13 years on the run after escaping from a Mexican prison in 2001. After he was captured in 2014, he broke out again, using a motorcycle to escape through a mile-long underground tunnel on July 11, 2015.
He was recaptured in a deadly shootout with Mexican naval special forces after six months on the lam.
“The Mexican government was already behind the eight ball in terms of extraditing him, and they wanted him out as soon as possible. They were already embarrassed by the two escapes,” a source said.
Guzmán is wanted in several other US jurisdictions, including Miami, California, Texas and Chicago.
In 2014, he was indicted by a Brooklyn federal jury for allegedly laundering $14 billion in drug money.
The indictment accused him of ordering hit men to carry out “hundreds of acts of violence,” including murders, torture, kidnappings and assassinations.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona, Joe Marino and Lia Eustachewich