Third time lucky for Mexico police after drug lord’s sewer escape fails
MEXICAN authorities were yesterday celebrating the capture of the world’s most-wanted drug lord, but new details emerged showing just how close he came to giving police the slip once again.
Security forces yesterday described how they finally captured Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman after a four-hour gunfight and a subterranean chase through the stinking sewers and drains of Los Mochis, a coastal city in his northwestern home state of Sinaloa. Yet again, a man who built a fortune on his drug cartel’s use of smuggling tunnels trusted his escape lay underground.
The authorities had been watching a house for a month and believed they had El Chapo in their sights before dawn on Friday when they made their move. Guzman left behind two armoured cars, rocket-propelled grenades and 11 henchmen who opened fire on the approaching marines, buying him enough time to get away.
“You could hear intense gunfire and a helicopter. It was fierce,” said a neighbour, describing how the battle began at 4am and raged for three hours.
With five men dead and six arrested, the chase moved underground, into the storm drains beneath the city.
The marines chased the drug lord and Orso Iván Gastélum Cruz — described as Guzman’s chief assassin and better known by the nickname “El Cholo” — through the sewers but could not stop him resurfacing.
Wearing a vest and covered in filth, the 58-year-old managed to steal a car but was caught outside the city before he could disappear again. It also emerged that Guzman was nearly captured in October, but marines chasing him in a helicopter decided not to shoot because he was accompanied by two women and a girl.
His capture ends a deeply embarrassing episode for the Mexican government, underlining a mix of corruption and incompetence that allowed El Chapo to escape in July after only 18 months in captivity.
President Enrique Peña Nieto said he had issued the order to recapture Guzman and that it followed months of careful intelligence work.
“The arrest is very important for the government of Mexico. It shows that the public can have confidence in its institutions,” he said.
Few ever believed that Guzman, who went from a farmer’s son to billionaire drug lord, would be captured alive.
He first escaped in 2001 while serving a 20-year sentence, bundled out of prison in a laundry cart.
He survived on the run for 13 years, in part by using counter-espionage techniques and communications equipment to stay ahead of police. But he also used tunnels leading in and out of the sewer system to pull off a number of Houdini-like vanishing acts before finally being recaptured in 2014.
Last year he escaped again, this time through a mile-long tunnel dug beneath his shower in his cell. It was kitted out with air ducts and electric lights and he was ferried away on a motorbike mounted on rails.
If all that sounds like the plot of a film, well Guzman thought so too.
He was caught in part because he was trying to make a biopic of his life.
Arely Gómez, Mexico’s attorney general, said investigators had tracked El Chapo’s lawyers as they met filmmakers. “He established communication with actors and producers, which formed a new line of investigation,” she said. As it happens, a film, The Great Escape, based on El Chapo’s life and vanishing acts is due to open on Friday.
For the time being, he has been returned to Altiplano prison — from where he escaped in July — while authorities decide what to do next.
The US has filed extradition requests on charges of organised crime, money laundering, murder and drug trafficking. In the past, Mexico has been intent on prosecuting its most high-profile criminal at home, but last night authorities announced that Guzman will face hearings for his possible extradition.
The Mexican attorney general’s office said the proceedings are based on two extradition requests made by US authorities last year, but it did not indicate when they would start.
More than a dozen prison and police officers have been arrested on charges of helping him flee.
Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official, said: “The big question is not if they will extradite him, but when. The day that Guzman enters a Mexican prison is the day that he will begin to plan his next escape.”