Series of arrests closed the noose on Mexico’s most- wanted drug lord
Joaquin ‘ El Chapo’ Guzman was losing allies and places to hide
For 13 years Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman watched from western Mexico’s rugged mountains as authorities captured or killed the leaders of every group challenging his Sinaloa cartel’s spot at the top of global drug trafficking.
Unscathed and his legend growing, the stocky son of a peasant farmer grabbed a slot on the Forbes’ billionaires’ list and a folkloric status as the capo who grew too powerful to catch. Then, late last year, authorities started closing on the inner circle of the world’s mostwanted drug lord.
The son of one of his two top henchmen, Ismael “Mayo” Zambada, was arrested at a border crossing in Nogales, Arizona in November as part of a complex investigation involving as many as 100 wiretaps, according to his lawyer.
A month later, one of the Sinaloa cartel’s main lieutenants was gunned down by Mexican helicopter gunships in a resort town a few hours drive to the east. Less than two weeks later, police at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam arrested one of the cartel’s top assassins, a man who handled transport and logistics for Guzman.
This month the noose started tightening. Federal forces began sweeping through Culiacan, capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa — closing streets, raiding houses, seizing automatic weapons, drugs and money, and arresting a series of men Mexican officials carefully described to reporters as top officials for Zambada.
But the target was bigger.
Henchmen arrested
On Feb. 13, a man known as “19,” whom officials called the new chief of assassins for Zambada, was arrested with two other men on the highway to the coastal resort city of Mazatlan. Four days later, a man described as a member of the Sinaloa cartel’s upper ranks was seized along with 4,000 hollowed- out cucumbers and bananas stuffed with cocaine. In the middle of this week, a 43- year- old known by the nickname “20” and described as Zambada’s chief of security, was arrested transporting more cocaine- stuffed produce.
By the middle of the week at least 10 Sinaloa henchmen had been seized.
A U. S. law enforcement official said Saturday at least some were actually security for Guzman, and authorities used them to obtain information that helped lead to the head of the cartel.
Agents learned that Guzman, 56, had started coming down from his isolated mountain hideouts to enjoy the comforts of Culiacan and Mazatlan, said Michael S. Vigil, a former senior DEA official who was briefed on the operation.
“That was a fatal error,” Vigil said.
Escaped through tunnel
Working on the information gleaned from Guzman’s bodyguards, Mexican marines swarmed the house of Guzman’s ex- wife but struggled to batter down the steel- reinforced door, according to Mexican authorities and former U. S. law- enforcement officials briefed on the operation.
As the marines forced their way in, Guzman fled through a secret door beneath a bathtub down a corrugated steel ladder into a network of tunnels and sewer canals that connect to six other houses in Culiacan, the officials said.
This shows that co- operation is working, and that it’s discreet and based on intelligencegathering.
RAUL BENITEZ
SECURITY EXPERT
Guzman fled to Mazatlan. On his heels, a team of U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents set up a base of operations with Mexican marines in the city, according to a U. S. law- enforcement official.
Early Saturday morning, Guzman’s reign came to an end without a shot . Marines closed the beachside road in front of the Miramar condominiums, a 10- storey building overlooking the Pacific .
Humble surroundings
Smashing down the door of an austerely decorated fourthfloor condo, they seized the country’s most- wanted man at 6: 40 a. m., a few minutes after the sun rose.
A neighbour who declined to identify himself for fear of retaliation said the apartment had only been occupied for two days. An employee of the building’s cleaning staff said that clothes were strewn across the floor and bed in the condo, and humble domestic appliances — a microwave, a floor fan, a flatscreen TV on a small table — were left inside.
Photos of the apartment published by a local newspaper showed cheap and unglamorous furnishings. Inside the condo, the photos showed little food or liquor: just a couple of dozen eggs on a shelf. A bag from a low- end supermarket lay on the floor. .
Mexico- U. S. co- operation
A U. S. law- enforcement official with direct knowledge of the killing of Zambada’s main lieutenant in November described it as part of a concerted binational effort to decapitate the Sinaloa cartel. The organization became the focus of U. S. and Mexican attention after a string of arrests and slaying of the heads of other cartels, most notably the seizure of brutal Zetas cartel head Miguel Angel Trevino Morales in July.
“Who are the only big fish left in the country? We can’t just twiddle our thumbs,” said the official . “Now we focus on the biggest elephant in the room. It’s by virtue of default.”
Guzman’s arrest appears certain to all but quash U. S. concerns that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration has been reducing co- operation with U. S. lawenforcement, a hallmark of his predecessor Felipe Calderon’s six- year term.
“This shows that co- operation is working, and that it’s discreet and based on intelligencegathering,” said Raul Benitez, a security expert at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.
By early afternoon, Guzman was marched across the tarmac of a hanger at the Mexico City airport. The man who eluded Mexican authorities for more than a decade looked pudgy, bowed and middle- aged in a white button- down shirt and beltless black jeans.
After Guzman’s 2001 escape in a laundry truck from a prison , the Sinaloa Cartel grew deadlier and more powerful, taking over much of the lucrative trafficking along the U. S. border.
Guzman was hit with multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U. S. as his drug empire stretched throughout North America and extended branches into Europe and Australia. Guzman’s play for power against local cartels caused a bloodbath in Tijuana and made Ciudad Juarez one of the deadliest cities in the world.