FACING JUSTICE
El Chapo jury hears of plastic surgery, slays
A Colombian drug kingpin who underwent radical plastic surgery stole the show at El Chapo’s drug trafficking trial Thursday as prosecutors raised their eyebrows over a Twitter post from the defense.
Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, a former leader of the Colombian North Valley Cartel, took the stand for prosecutors and described for jurors the multiple facial surgeries he endured to evade the long arm of the law.
“I altered the physical appearance of my face by changing my jawbone, cheekbones, eyes, mouth, ears,” he testified Thursday while inexplicably wearing black gloves on his hands.
Ramirez, nicknamed “Chupeta,” or lollipop, said he was a leader of Colombia’s largest drug gang, the North Valley Cartel, before his 2007 arrest in Brazil and extradition to the U.S. a year later.
The former cocaine czar said he first met El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman, in a Mexico City hotel in the early 1990s and went on to form a wildly lucrative, 18-year partnership with the druglord.
“We spoke about the amount of planes I could send him — he told me to send him as many as I could,” Ramirez testified Thursday.
Ramirez said he began supplying El Chapo with regular plane loads of his best blow.
“100% pure cocaine, optimum cocaine,” the witness said Chapo requested.
He said Chapo charged him 3% more than other traffickers but claimed he was worth it.
“I’m a lot faster — try me and you’ll see. And your planes and your pilots and your cocaine are gonna be a lot more secure,” Guzman allegedly told him.
Ramirez said he soon learned Guzman had powerful law enforcement officials in his pocket.
Ramirez said he amassed a personal fortune topping $1 billion before his capture and ultimate convictions on murder and drug charges in the U.S.
Ramirez didn’t flinch when Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg asked about the number of people he ordered killed. “A hundred and fifty people,” he said.
“Have you ever personally killed someone?” she asked.
“Yes, in 2004. With gunshots in the head and the face. I shot the person with a gun,” he said.
The chilling testimony came the same day prosecutors sent a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Brian Cogan asking him to admonish Chapo’s defense over a Wednesday tweet and other comments made publicly outside the trial.
The tweet in question was posted by the Balarezo law firm, which is representing Guzman.
It named the song “Un Puño De Tierra,” or “Fistful of Dirt,” and included a link to the ranchera classic.
It was posted shortly after witness Miguel Angel Martinez, a former top lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, told jurors he believes Guzman hired a band to play the song “about 20 times” outside his Mexican jail cell before a gunman tried to kill him with grenades some 20 years ago.
U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in the letter he believes the tweet was meant as a message.