Guilty at last, drug kingpin El Chapo
After fleeing two jails in Mexico, murderer faces life in US prison
‘Pocketed nearly $14billion’
JOAQUIN ‘El Chapo’ Guzman faces spending the rest of his life in jail after being convicted of running one of the world’s largestever criminal enterprises.
A heavily guarded New York jury heard 11 weeks of shocking evidence about the Mexican drug kingpin’s reign of murder and corruption.
There were Hollywood-style tales of grisly killings, political pay-offs, cocaine hidden in jalapeno cans, jewel-encrusted guns and a naked escape through a tunnel with his mistress.
Guzman, who twice escaped jail in Mexico, spent 13 years on the run – but was extradited to the US in 2017. The leader of the feared Sinaloa cartel stared straight at the jury as the judge read the verdict yesterday. Prosecutors had accused the 61-year-old of 33 murders and sending more than 220 tons of cocaine into the US. A jury convicted him on all ten counts.
In one of the trial’s most sensational moments, Guzman’s former right-hand man claimed the drug lord once paid a $100million (€88million) bribe to ex-Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto.
The court in Brooklyn was told El Chapo – or Shorty – pocketed nearly $14billion (€12billion) over three decades of criminal activity.
Witnesses included 14 of his former confederates, whom the defence painted as liars seeking reduced sentences. Among exhibits presented in court were Guzman’s garish gun collection – including gold-plated weapons – and solid bricks of cocaine.
His wife, former beauty queen Emma Coronel, 29, was a regular visitor to court. She remained calm as one of her husband’s many mistresses, Lucero Sanchez, broke down in tears on the stand.
Prosecutors said Guzman raped her when she was 21 and lured her into marijuana trafficking. He is said to have sired 19 children.
Guzman is due to be sentenced on June 25 and is set to receive life without parole.
But even with the crime boss in a maximum-security prison, experts stressed it would make little difference to Mexico’s massive drug trafficking industry.