The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cartel operations detailed in trial
The trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, 61, the famed Mexican drug lord known as “El Chapo,” has been ongoing in a federal district court in Brooklyn since November. “This is such an important case, because no single individual in Mexico is more responsible for the last decade of violence than Chapo Guzmán,” said David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego who focuses on Mexican politics and U.S.-Mexico border issues.
Who is ‘El Chapo?’
Guzmán was the Sinaloa cartel, which transported tons of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, smuggling through tunnels under the border, and reportedly bribed public officials across the country. “El Chapo” means “Shorty.”
Why is he on trial in New York?
Mexico has tried to bring Guzmán to justice but he escaped twice from maximum-security prisons in his native country. During his 2001 imprisonment, he enlisted the help of the prison guards — hiding in a laundry cart, as the legend goes. He famously escaped again in 2015, breaking out of Mexico’s most secure prison via a mile-long tunnel and evading capture for six months. After Guzmán was recaptured in 2016, Mexico sent him north to face trial.
Graft in Mexico
Nearly every level of the Mexican government has been depicted as being on the take: Prison guards, airport officials, police, prosecutors, tax assessors and military personnel are all said to have been compromised.
On Tuesday, Alex Cifuentes Villa, a Colombian drug lord who worked with Guzmán, told the court that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took a $100 million bribe from Guzmán. He said Peña Nieto had requested $250 million.
The IT guy
U.S. authorities recruited Guzmán’s IT expert, Christian Rodriguez, to become an informant and go undercover. Rodriguez had built Guzmán and his allies an encrypted communication network, but then helped the bureau crack it.
The private messages obtained by the FBI painted an astonishing portrait of the crime lord not only as a serial philanderer, but also as a man who, mixing sex and business, relied on the women in his life to help him conduct operations.
Son of a cartel leader
Vicente Zambada Niebla, a son of Ismael Zambada García, one of the cartel’s leaders, was groomed to take control of the group. But in a reversal Jan. 3, the cartel prince betrayed his father by testifying for more than five hours about the drug empire. His lawyers claimed Vicente Zambada had been working secretly as a spy for the DEA, swapping information about his rivals in exchange for the ability to run his business freely.