Chapo crony’s ‘about face’
Testifies about surgical disguises
It’s “Face/Off” for real. A Colombian drug-lord associate of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman completely reconstructed his face with plastic surgery to avoid arrest while on the run from authorities, he testified on Thursday.
“I had changes done to my face,” said former North Valley Cartel leader Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia (above) — also known as “Chupeta” or “Lollipop” — while testifying in El Chapo’s Brooklyn federalcourt trial. “I altered the physical appearance of my jawbone, my cheekbone, my eyes, my mouth, my ears and my nose.”
But the result was far more shocking than the John TravoltaNicolas Cage face switch in the hit 1997 film — the former co- caine capo’s visage is now a lizard-like look of stretched white skin, extreme cheekbones and a giant mouth that had the courtroom transfixed.
Ramirez, who wore a parka and fleece gloves while on the stand, said he first began erasing his identity in the 1980s — paying off officials to have every photo, fingerprint and record erased. But after a stint in prison in the late 1990s, he fled to Brazil and had a really extreme makeover.
Ramirez hid out in an extravagant mansion, leaving only for plastic surgery and midnight bike rides while keeping up an ever-changing array of disguises as he continued operating his drug empire from afar, according to a Guardian report.
But even a new face couldn’t mask his true identity — and he was finally busted in 2007 when his voice was picked up by a phone tap and ID’d by US feds.
During his 20 years as a narco kingpin, Ramirez estimated he helped import some 400,000 kilos of cocaine into the US and ordered the death of 150 people, including victims in America.
Ramirez smuggled his goods into the States through Mexico — dropping the wares from his planes at various landings strips, where local cartels could smuggle them to LA. Once there, his operation moved the drugs to New York by hiding them inside tractor-trailers, small cars with hidden compartments and airplanes, he said.
He first began working with El Chapo (inset) in the early ’90s, after meeting him in Mexico City. Guzman wanted a bigger cut than other traffickers — 40 percent instead of 37 — but promised the extra money would be worth it, he said. “He said, ‘I’m a lot faster. Try me and you’ll see,’ ” Ramirez recalled.
After the first run, his pilots came back gushing. El Chapo’s guys had refueled their planes and unloaded the coke quickly — and the were there for protection.
“They had been fed and were very happy and wanted to go back,” he said. “That was one of the first times the Mexican drug traffickers delivered my cocaine that quickly,” Ramirez said.