GUILTY AS EL Mexican faces life in jail for running world’s biggest drug cartel
THE world’s biggest drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, faces life in jail after being found guilty of running the ruthless Sinaloa cartel.
Jurors convicted the Mexican, 61, of conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms.
After the trial, US attorney Richard Donoghue said: “It is a sentence from which there is no escape and there is no return. This conviction is a victory for the American people who have suffered for so long and so much while Guzman made billions pouring poison over our southern border.
“This is a victory for the Mexican people Guzman is taken away after flight from Mexico
who have lost more than 100,000 lives in drug-related violence.” Prosecutors called the cartel, formed in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, “the world’s largest and most prolific drug trafficking organisation”. They said the
DESCRIBE VOLUME OF FOUR HAULS
kingpin, 61, repeatedly commanded his sicarios, or assassins, to commit murder.
They said just four shipments of cocaine he supplied contained “more than a line of coke for every single person in the US” – 326 million people.
Guzman, whose nickname is Spanish for shorty, had spent years on the run. He managed to escape prison in 2015 using a tunnel dug to his cell but was hunted down and arrested again before being handed over to US.
The three-month trial included testimony from a fellow cartel member who claimed that Guzman once paid a €88million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, which he denied.
There was no reaction from Guzman or his beauty queen wife Emma Coronel as the jury in New York read the verdict after six days of deliberation.
But after they left the court, he waved and smiled as she touched her chest as tears welled in her eyes, before giving him a thumbs-up. Guzman, who plans to appeal, will be sentenced on June 25.
Court heard of alleged bribe to former Mexican president. He denied it.
More than a line of cocaine for every single person in the US PROSECUTORS