World’s worst drug lord escapes Mexican prison through tunnel

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/07/12/worlds-worst-drug-lord-has-escaped-from-mexican-prison/

World’s worst drug lord escapes Mexican prison through tunnel
By Associated Press
July 12, 2015 | 4:55am

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman
Photo: AP


MEXICO CITY — Top drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped through a 1 mile tunnel that opened into the shower area of his cell, Mexico’s top security official announced Sunday.

With the elaborate escape hatch built allegedly without the detection of authorities, Guzman has done what Mexican authorities promised would not happen after his re-capture last year — slipped out of a maximum security prison for the second time.

Eighteen employees from various part of the Altiplano prison 56 miles west of Mexico City have been taken in for questioning, Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said in a news conference Sunday.

A manhunt began immediately late Saturday for the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which has an international reach and is believed to control most of the major crossing points for drugs at the U.S. border with Mexico.

Associated Press journalists near the Altiplano said the roads were being heavily patrolled by Federal Police, who had also set up checkpoints. Flights were also suspended at Toluca airport near the penitentiary in the state of Mexico.

Guzman was last seen about 9 p.m. Saturday in the shower area of the Altiplano prison, according to a statement from the National Security Commission issued early Sunday. After a time, he was lost by the prison’s security camera surveillance network. Upon checking his cell, authorities found it empty.

Guzman’s escape is an embarrassment to the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which has received plaudits for its aggressive approach to top drug lords. Since the government took office in late 2012, Mexican authorities have nabbed or killed six of them, including Guzman.

Guzman was caught by authorities for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison on drug-trafficking related charges. He escaped from Puente Grande, another Mexican maximum-security prison in western Jalisco state, in 2001 with the help of prison guards. The lore says he escaped in a laundry cart, although there have been several versions of how he got away.

He was re-captured in February 2014 after eluding authorities for days across his home state of Sinaloa, for which the cartel is named. He was listed as 56 years old last year, though there are discrepancies in his birth date.

Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. as well as Mexico, and was on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wanted list. The U.S. has said it would file an extradition request, though it’s not clear if that has already happened.

Former Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told The AP earlier this year that sending Guzman to the United States would save Mexico a lot of money, but said Mexico would prosecute him at home as a matter of national sovereignty.

He dismissed concerns that Guzman could escape a second time. That risk “does not exist,” Murillo Karam said.

During his first stint as a fugitive, Guzman transformed himself from a middling Mexican capo into arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. His fortune grew to be estimated at more than $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which listed him among the “World’s Most Powerful People” and ranked him above the presidents of France and Venezuela.

Guzman has long been known for his ability to pay off local residents and even authorities, who would tip him off to security operations launched for his capture. He finally was tracked down to a modest beachside high-rise in the Pacific Coast resort city of Mazatlan on Feb. 22, 2014, where he had been hiding with his wife and twin daughters. He was taken in the early morning without a shot fired.

But before they reached him, security forces went on a several-day chase through Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. They found houses where Guzman supposedly had been staying with steel-enforced doors and elaborate tunnels that allowed him to escape through the sewer system.

Even with his 2014 capture, Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel empire continues to stretch throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. The cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last decade, taking at least an estimated 100,000 lives.

Altiplano, which is considered the main and most secure of Mexico’s federal prisons, also houses Zetas drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Trevino, and Edgar Valdes Villarreal, known as “La Barbie,” of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/07/15/meet-t...arried-to-the-worlds-most-powerful-drug-lord/

The American beauty queen married to El Chapo
By Danika Fears
July 15, 2015 | 1:43am

Emma Coronel Aispuro is married to El Chapo.
Photo: Getty Images


No wonder he was so desperate to bust out.

The young American-born wife of escaped drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is a former beauty queen who married the billionaire cartel boss as a teen.

Guzman, 60, met his small-town bride, Emma Coronel Aispuro, in 2006, when she was just 17.

The next year, Coronel was named the local Coffee and Guava Queen in the town of Canelas — but some have questioned if it was more than just sheer good looks that earned her the crown.

Hundreds of gunmen riding motorcycles swarmed into the town for a lavish party announcing her candidacy on June 6, 2007, The Daily Beast reported.

El Chapo himself showed up for the event — stepping out of a plane with an automatic weapon and his gun-toting entourage.

At the big bash, the couple announced their plans to marry on her 18th birthday — and Coronel ended up seizing the crown.

The now-25-year-old knockout, who was born in California and holds dual citizenship, fled to Lancaster, Calif., just outside Los Angeles, to give birth to twin girls at Antelope Valley Hospital on Aug. 15, 2011.

Because their mom is a US citizen and they were born in California, both girls have dual citizenship as well.

But her drug-lord hubby’s name is noticeably missing from LA County birth certificates for their two daughters — likely because the crime kingpin was wanted both in the United States and Mexico at the time.

Federal agents kept a close eye on Coronel as she traveled into California and back, even though no charges were ever brought against her, the Los Angeles Times reported.

But she does have family members with ties to her husband’s drug cartel — including an uncle who was Guzman’s former partner before being killed in a shootout with Mexican authorities in July 2010.

Coronel has kept quiet since Guzman escaped from the maximum-security Altiplano prison outside Mexico City on Saturday night.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2015/12/10/el-chapo-tells-isis-his-men-will-destroy-them/

El Chapo tells ISIS his men will destroy them
By Laura Italiano
December 10, 2015 | 2:44pm

The world’s most wanted drug lord has declared war on the Islamic State, promising the terror group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that his narcotics cartel will wipe them off the planet.

“My men will destroy you,”’ El Chapo huffs to the ISIS leader in an encrypted email that was leaked to a cartel-linked blogger in Mexico.

News of the threat, purportedly issued from wherever El Chapo is hiding since busting out of a Mexican prison in July, was first reported in the US by cartelblog.com.

El Chapo — real name Joaquin Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel — is not incensed at ISIS being a vile, bloodthirsty death cult. Instead, the renegade drug lord is angry that ISIS destroyed one of his drug shipments somewhere in the Middle East.

“You [ISIS] are not soldiers,” El Chapo huffs in the leaked email, according to cartelblog.com.

“You are nothing but lowly p-ssies. Your god cannot save you from the true terror that my men will levy at you if you continue to impact my operation.”

The evil international overlord trash talk continues:

“My men will destroy you. The world is not yours to dictate. I pity the next son of a wh-re that tries to interfere with the business of the Sinaloa Cartel. I will have their heart and tongue torn from them.”

The Sinaloa Cartel has been trying to make inroads in the Middle East, which has a burgeoning party drug scene enjoyed by oil-rich royals and executives, the blog notes.

“As drugs are not a part of the organizational ideology for a Muslim state, ISIS fighters have been destroying shipments of drugs from the cartels,” the blog says.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2016/01/08/druglord-el-chapo-recaptured-mexican-president-says/

Drug lord El Chapo recaptured after deadly shootout
By Laura Italiano and Jamie Schram
January 8, 2016 | 1:35pm

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is escorted by the authorities to a Mexican Army helicopter. Photo: EPA


“El Chapo,” the world’s most-wanted drug lord, was recaptured Friday following a deadly shootout at a Mexican compound loaded with weapons — and US officials want to have him shipped straight to Brooklyn.

Billionaire cocaine kingpin Joaquin Guzman — whose nickname means “Shorty” — was brought down in his home state of Sinaloa during a predawn clash with Mexican marine special forces, officials said.

Five of Guzman’s bodyguards were killed and one marine was wounded in the bloody confrontation at his hideout in the coastal city of Los Mochis.

At least three US jurisdictions — led by Brooklyn — have indicted Guzman on murder, drug-smuggling and related charges. In Brooklyn, he was indicted in 2014 for allegedly laundering $14 million and ordering multiple killings, kidnappings and torture assaults.

The Department of Justice’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section also wants him, as do federal prosecutors in Florida.

“It will be a joint request from all three districts for El Chapo to be extradited to Brooklyn to face the charges in our indictment,” said Nellin McIntosh, a spokeswoman for the US attorney in Brooklyn.

“It is the practice of the United States to seek extradition whenever defendants subject to US charges are apprehended in another country,” said Department of Justice spokesman Peter Carr.

A photo released by Mexican authorities shows the handcuffed *fugitive in a filthy tank top uninjured except for a few small scrapes on his arms.

His compound was girded for battle, equipped with two armored vehicles, eight assault weapons and a rocket launcher, Mexican *officials said.

Guzman had been on the lam since fleeing a prison outside Mexico City on July 11 through a mile-long tunnel tricked out with electric lights, air ducts and a *motorbike that ran on train rails.

Law-enforcement agents were responding to a citizen’s tip about armed people seen at the house, and were fired on from inside as they raided the structure, Mexican naval officials said.

“Mision cumplida: lo tenemos,” Mexican President Enrique Pena Niento tweeted.

Translation: “Mission accomplished: we have him.”

A tweet from an account believed to belong to El Chapo’s son, Ivan, responds with an obscene suggestion involving the Mexican president and his mother.

The recapture caps a riveting and, for the Mexican government, embarrassing escape yarn.

Guzman popped down a hidden hatch in the shower of his cell and fled his so-called maximum-security prison through a tunnel estimated to have taken a year to construct.

He surfaced inside a walled site a mile south of the prison.

Since then, his whereabouts were the subject of folklore, red herrings and tantalizing taunts, including pictures on social-media posts purporting to show him flying in a private plane and knocking back a beer with family or friends.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2016/01/09/mexico-wants-to-send-el-chapo-to-the-us/

Mexico wants to send El Chapo to the US
By Associated Press
January 9, 2016 | 4:01pm

Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by soldiers during a presentation in Mexico City. Photo: Reuters


MEXICO CITY — Mexico is willing to extradite drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States, a federal law enforcement official said Saturday. It’s a sharp reversal from the official position after his last capture in 2014.

“Mexico is ready. There are plans to cooperate with the U.S.,” said the official, who spoke on condition anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment.

But he cautioned that there could be a lengthy wait before U.S. prosecutors can get their hands on Guzman, the most-wanted trafficker who was recaptured Friday after six months on the run: “You have to go through the judicial process, and the defense has its elements too.”

Top officials in the party of President Enrique Pena Nieto also floated the idea of extradition, which they had flatly ruled out before Guzman’s embarrassing escape from Mexico’s top maximum security prison on July 11.

“He has a lot of outstanding debts to pay in Mexico, but if it’s necessary, he can pay them in other places,” said Manlio Fabio Beltrones, president of Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party.

But even if Mexican officials agree, Guzman’s attorney Juan Pablo Badillo told the Milenio newspaper that the defense already has filed six motions to challenge extradition requests.

“They can challenge the judge, challenge the probable cause, challenge the procedure,” said Juan Masini, former U.S. Department of Justice attache at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. “That’s why it can take a long time. They won’t challenge everything at once … they can drip, drip, milk it that way.”

Guzman, a legendary figure in Mexico who went from a farmer’s son to the world’s top drug lord, was apprehended after a shootout between gunmen and Mexican marines at the home in Los Mochis, a seaside city in Guzman’s home state of Sinaloa.

The operation resulted from six months of investigation by Mexican forces, who located Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October but decided not to shoot because he was with two women and a child, said Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez.

After that he took a lower profile and limited his communication until he decided to move to Los Mochis in December.

Following his capture, the head of the powerful, international Sinaloa Cartel was brought to Mexico City’s airport, frog-marched to a helicopter before news media, and flown back to the same prison he’d fled.

There were immediately calls for his quick extradition, just as there were after the February 2014 capture of Guzman, who faces drug-trafficking charges in several U.S. states. At the time, Mexico’s government insisted it could handle the man who had already broken out of one maximum-security prison, saying he must pay his debt to Mexican society first.

Then Guzman escaped a second time on July 11 under the noses of guards and prison officials at Mexico’s most secure lock-up, slipping out an elaborate tunnel that showed the country’s depth of corruption while thoroughly embarrassing the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

In celebrating Guzman’s latest capture, Mexican officials showed none of their bravado of two years ago, though they made clear that the intelligence building and investigation were carried out entirely by Mexican forces. They did not mention extradition.

“They have to extradite him,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico. “It’s almost a forced move.”

Gomez said that one of Guzman’s key tunnel builders led officials to the neighborhood in Los Mochis, where authorities had been watching for a month. The team noticed a lot of activity at the house Wednesday and the arrival of a car early Thursday morning. Authorities were able to determine that Guzman was inside the house, she said.

The marines were met with gunfire as they closed in. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested. One marine was injured.

“You could hear intense gunfire and a helicopter; it was fierce,” said a neighbor, adding that the battle raged for three hours, starting at 4 a.m. She refused to be quoted by name in fear for her own safety.

Gomez said Guzman and his security chief, “El Cholo” Ivan Gastelum, were able to flee via storm drains and escape through a manhole cover to the street, where they commandeered getaway cars. Marines climbed into the drains in pursuit. They closed in on the two men based on reports of stolen vehicles and they were arrested on the highway.

In 2014, Guzman evaded capture by fleeing through a network of interconnected tunnels in the drainage system under Culiacan, the Sinaloa state capital.

“The arrest of today is very important for the government of Mexico. It shows that the public can have confidence in its institutions,” Pena Nieto said in a public address. “Mexicans can count on a government decided and determined to build a better country.”

What happens now is more crucial for Guzman, whose cartel smuggles multi-ton shipments of cocaine and marijuana as well as manufacturing and transporting methamphetamines and heroin, mostly to the U.S.

The United States filed requests for Guzman’s extradition last June 25, just days before he escaped from prison. In September, a judge issued a second provisional arrest warrant on U.S. charges of organized crime, money laundering, drug trafficking and homicide, among others. But Guzman’s lawyers already had filed appeals and received injunctions that could delay the extradition process for months or even years.

“The arrest is a significant achievement in our shared fight against transnational organized crime, violence, and drug trafficking,” the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement.

After his first capture in Guatemala in June 1993, Guzman was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He reportedly made his 2001 escape from the maximum security prison in a laundry cart, though some have discounted that version.

His second escape last year was even more audacious. He fled down a hole in his shower stall in plain view of guards into a mile-long tunnel dug from a property outside the prison. The tunnel had ventilation, lights and a motorbike on rails. Construction noise as a digger broke through from the tunnel to his cell was obvious inside the prison, according a video of Guzman in his cell just before he escaped.

Mexican officials say dreams of Hollywood helped them track down and capture the world’s most notorious drug trafficker.

Apparently Guzman, while on the run, thought his story was worthy of a movie. Part of the reason authorities tracked him down was because he wanted to film a biopic, Gomez told the press at the airport ceremony where the prisoner was shown off to the press.

“For that he established communication with actresses and producers, which became a new line of investigation,” she said.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2017/02/01/el-chapo-allowed-to-appear-in-court/

El Chapo allowed to appear in court
By Emily Saul
February 1, 2017 | 11:01am

Infamous drug kingpin “El Chapo” has been granted his wish and will appear in Brooklyn Federal Court in person Friday, a federal judge has ruled.

The order, issued Wednesday by Justice Brian Cogan, allows the Mexican drug lord — real name Joaquin Guzman — to appear face-to-face during the hearing.

The decision comes after the cartel leader threw the legal version of a hissy fit when the same judge ruled last week he would appear via video conference, so as not to “burden” the federal marshals and disrupt traffic during his transport from Manhattan.

Yet his lawyers asked the judge to reconsider Monday, saying their client was lonely in solitary confinement and that “his absence from the courtroom would necessarily lead to the public impression that Mr. Guzman is too dangerous to be brought to the courtroom.”

His lawyers are expected to argue Friday that their client be removed from 23 hours of solitary confinement daily, and that they need more time to prepare for trial, given that the case is “so unusual.”

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2017/02/03/lawyers-complain-about-el-chapos-treatment-behind-bars/

El Chapo’s lawyers: We can’t even bring him a glass of water
By Kaja Whitehouse and Jamie Schram
February 3, 2017 | 12:13pm

El Chapo's wife and his attorneys stand outside the Brooklyn federal courthouse. Paul Martinka

Lawyers for Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” whined to a Brooklyn judge Friday that their notorious client is being treated unfairly by the Federal Bureau of Prisons because he’s spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement under heavy restrictions.

Defense attorney, Michelle Gelernt, said that the cartel kingpin, whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán, is so restricted that he’s not allowed to accept water during visits with his lawyers and paralegals – and can only exercise one hour a day.

“When we go for a visit, we are not even allowed to give Mr. Guzman water,” Gelernt told Judge Brian M. Cogan during Friday’s hearing in Brooklyn federal court.

That means “we cannot have a glass of water,” she added.

Guzmán, unshackled, stood quietly in blue prison fatigues beside Gelernt and his other defense attorney, Michael Schneider.

His beautiful wife, Emma Coronel, 27, sat in the gallery wearing skin tight jeans and platform boots alongside Guzman’s Mexican lawyer, Silvia Delgado, clad in a bright purple dress, brown fur-trimmed suede jacket and black boots.

Gelernt also told the judge that Guzmán’s family has not been allowed to call or visit him at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.

She also said his lawyers have only been approved to see him one hour a day, which is hampering their ability to put together a strong defense.

Gelernt also groused that Bureau of Prisons officials refuse to allow anyone except Guzmán’s legal staff to be present in a room at their office during teleconferences with the narcotics trafficker from jail.

Guzmán’s family members want to confer with him about retaining private counsel, Gelernt told the judge.

But Cogan was unmoved by her arguments, saying, “Based on what I know of this case, there are grounds for taking additional security measures. I have to defer to BOP.”

Guzmán pleaded not guilty at his Jan. 20 arraignment on a 17-count indictment charging him with manufacturing and distributing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as money laundering.

He also faces federal indictments for similar crimes in several other jurisdictions.

In their 56-page indictment, Brooklyn federal prosecutors laid out an ironclad case against Guzmán that could send him to a federal penitentiary for the rest of his life.

Prosecutors have arranged for dozens of cooperating witnesses who had face-to-face meetings with Guzmán to testify about his “power, corruption and violence” within his Sinaloa Cartel — the largest drug-trafficking network in the world, papers charge.

Colombian cartel leaders are among the witnesses who “will testify to every aspect of Guzmán’s organization from its inception in the late 1980s through his building of an international empire,” the documents state.

Prosecutors will also show that Guzmán is “extremely violent” and “maintains caches of weapons to be used for protection and to punish those who act against Guzmán’s interests,” the papers say.

Guzmán was first indicted by a Brooklyn federal grand jury in 2009.

The feds have vowed not to let Guzmán escape from an American prison as he did from two Mexican lockups.

Guzmán’s most notable Mexican prison break came in 2015, when he rode to freedom on a motorcycle through a makeshift tunnel. He was recaptured six months later.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2017/05/02/el-chapo-has-another-chance-to-get-out-of-solitary/

El Chapo has another chance to get out of solitary
By Emily Saul
May 2, 2017 | 7:40pm

Lawyers for Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman will get another shot at asking a Brooklyn federal judge ​to ​lighten the restrictive confinement the notorious Mexican druglord is being held on during a court appearance this Friday.

El Chapo has repeatedly made headlines for a host of complaints during his stay at the Manhattan Correctional Complex– including that he’s currently being held under “the worst, most restrictive conditions of any prisoner currently detained” in the whole of the United States.

The lonely kingpin has also whined he can’t call his wife, drink water around his lawyers, and is beginning to suffer from auditory hallucinations in which “Mexican music” plays on loop in his head.

His defense team and prosecutors Friday are expected to discuss the “special administrative measures” surrounding Guzman’s case, including the use of firewall counsel– nonpartisan mediator of case information–to vet visitors, according to court documents.

The drug lord, who will be enjoying his first excursion out of solitary confinement since his last court appearance in February, is expected to attend.

Guzman pleaded “not guilty” to the 17-count indictment charging him with money laundering and manufacturing and distributing a host of drugs following his extradition to the US in January.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2017/05/05/el-chapo-wont-stand-trial-until-next-year/

El Chapo won’t stand trial until next year
By Stephanie Pagones and Laura Italiano
May 5, 2017 | 11:33am | Updated

Get him some El Chapstick — for kissing-up to his judge.

Diminutive killer druglord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was meek as a lamb during a Brooklyn federal court hearing Friday, repeatedly telling a judge “Gracias,” and “Si, senor” and insisting sweetly that he is “completamente satisfecho–” or completely satisfied, with his feds-appointed lawyers.

“I thank you, sir, and I would like to continue with my current attorneys because I feel well with them,” the kiss-ass kingpin told the judge.

“I would want to continue with my attorneys because I feel fine,” he said at another point.

“Yes sir, I am making my own decision…Yes, sir, [I am] completely satisfied.”

Actually, Guzman has much to complain about.

He learned in court Friday that it will be next April at the earliest before he goes on trial for murder and conspiracy charges.

That means he’ll enjoy at least one more year in a Manhattan lockup — where he can’t mingle with fellow inmates, can’t get visits (conjugal or otherwise) from his beauty queen wife, and certainly can’t tunnel out of his shower to freedom.

Guzman, who twice escaped from Mexican prisons, including through a mile-long tunnel from his cell shower stall, is being held in terrorist-level security at the Manhattan Correctional Complex,

He can’t even meet in the same room with his three lawyers, who complained in court Friday that they must hold paperwork up for him to look at through a plexiglass divider.

Guzman can also only see his wife in open court, as he did Friday.

From her second row seat, the wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, 27, waved as Guzman was led into court in his blue jumpsuit, and smiled at him throughout the hearing.

The kingpin’s trial date was set by US District Judge Brian Cogan, who stressed that even April 16, 2018 was “somewhat aspirational” and may need to be postponed.

The trial will take two to three months.

After court, defense lawyer Michelle Gelernt complained to reporters that it was difficult to discuss “thousands and thousands of documents or listen to thousands of hours of recordings” with Guzman when they are divided by a glass partition that is “very difficult to hear through.”

Guzman’s wife made no statement; she is “obviously very upset about the news [from Cogan on Thursday] that she won’t be able to see or speak to her husband unless it’s in a public courtroom,” Gelernt told the press.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2017/05/23/el-chapos-lawyers-say-extradition-to-us-was-illegal/

El Chapo’s lawyers say extradition to US was illegal
By Lia Eustachewich
May 23, 2017 | 12:05pm

Lawyers for Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán claim the drug kingpin’s extradition from Mexico to Brooklyn was illegal – and now they want the court documents to prove it.

In a letter filed Friday, Chapo’s team of lawyers accuses prosecutors of refusing to turn over paperwork related to his transfer to US custody in January.

They said they need the papers in order to challenge his extradition and claim that the government has admitted that extradition requests to Mexico didn’t include the slew of drug-trafficking and murder charges he faces in Brooklyn.

“The government’s attempts to prevent Mr. Guzman from even seeing the documents bearing on his extradition are unfair and have no basis in law,” the defense wrote in the letter. “Those documents are material to whether his extradition was improper and whether he has standing to challenge it.”

Now, Chapo’s lawyers want Brooklyn federal court Judge Brian Cogan to force prosecutors to hand over the papers, which the government has “consistently moved to frustrate,” the filing says.

Prosecutors said the defense is seeking to challenge the Mexican government’s decision to extradite Chapo and argued that the US courts “cannot second-guess another country’s grant of extradition to the United States,” according to court papers filed late last month.

Chapo, whose nickname means “Shorty,” faces life in prison for running the violent Sinaloa Cartel, the largest drug-trafficking network in the world.

He also faces federal charges in other states, including Texas and California.

Chapo’s trial is scheduled for April of next year.

 

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2017/08/14/judge-wont-let-el-chapo-pay-for-lawyers-with-alleged-cartel-assets/

Judge won’t let El Chapo pay for lawyers with alleged cartel assets
By Emily Saul
August 14, 2017 | 1:09pm

Notorious Mexican druglord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán made his first public appearance in months Monday — as his prospective new attorney waffled on whether or not he would take the case.

“I can’t guarantee we will be his lawyers,” defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman said outside Brooklyn federal court, as he stood next to lawyer Eduardo Balarezo. “We’re willing to take some chances, but the risk would be on us.”

The lawyer was referring to a ruling made earlier in the day by Judge Brian Cogan, who said he wouldn’t order prosecutors to “carve out fees” for defense attorneys from the $14 billion in alleged cartel assets that federal authorities are seeking to seize from Guzman.

Prior to Cogan’s decision, the peaky-looking kingpin was led into the courtroom by four marshals. He waved excitedly at his bombshell wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, as she sat in the front row of the gallery alongside his prospective lawyers.

His hair combed flat, the 5-foot-6-inch cartel kingpin sat with his arms crossed listening through his interpreter. At one point he leaned back, and stared at his wife for almost a minute.

Lichtman told reporters he’s been meeting with the sedate Guzman since February, and can tell his round-the-clock isolation is “taking a toll.”

‘I’ve noticed a deterioration in his faculties,” Lichtman said of the diminutive drug lord.

El Chapo — whose precise age is unknown but is believed to be around 60 — has previously told lawyers he occasionally hears music and voices as he sits alone in his cell for 23 hours a day.

“The conditions are obscene, I’ve represented infamous people over the years,” said Lichtman, who was part of the legal team that got John “Junior” Gotti acquitted in 2005. “He’s being held in the most harsh conditions I’ve seen in 27 years of practice.”

The lawyer added the lonely kingpin is expecting his first “in-person” visit on Thursday, much to his client’s delight.

While Lichtman refused to say with whom his prospective client would be meeting, he earlier let it slip that Guzman’s sister had been cleared by authorities for visitation.

El Chapo is slotted to return to court on Nov. 6. His trial is currently scheduled for April 2018.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/01/10/judge-pushes-el-chapo-trial-back-to-september/

Judge pushes ‘El Chapo’ trial back to September
By Emily Saul
January 10, 2018 | 7:49pm

Infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán will have to suffer in solitary a little longer, as a Brooklyn judge ruled Wednesday the cartel leader’s trial will now kick-off in September, not April as originally planned.

The kingpin had initially been scheduled to stand trial on a litany of charges, including criminal enterprise and international cocaine trafficking, beginning April 16.

Yet as the anniversary of the 60-year-old’s extradition to the United States approaches, Brooklyn federal court judge Brian Cogan pushed the proceeding to September. No exact date has been set.

The order comes after the Sinaloa Cartel leader’s lawyer, A. Eduardo Balarezo, asked for more time to prepare for what’s expected to be a three or four month trial.

The lawyer cited the restrictive conditions placed on his diminutive client as he languishes at the Metropolitan Correction Center as inhibiting his defense team’s ability to prepare.

Prosecutors did not fight the request to push back the proceeding.

Guzmán has repeatedly complained about the conditions under which he’s being held–claiming the time alone is bringing on auditory hallucinations in which he hears “Mexican music” at all hours.

His lawyers have previously described his jailhouse quarters as “the worst, most restrictive conditions of any prisoner currently detained” in the United States.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/01/24/el-chapo-promises-not-to-kill-any-jurors/

El Chapo promises not to kill any jurors
By Emily Saul
January 24, 2018 | 6:48pm | Updated

Notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán promises he won’t kill any jurors seated in his upcoming federal court trial, arguing it’s therefore unnecessary to keep them anonymous and under armed guard as prosecutors have asked.

Affording any special protections to the panel “sends the message to each juror that he or she needs to be protected from Mr. Guzmán. From there, members of the jury could infer that Mr. Guzmán is both dangerous and guilty,” defense attorney A. Eduardo Balarezo wrote in a recently filed motion.

Prosecutors have asked Brooklyn Federal Court Justice Brian Cogan to impanel an anonymous jury in the infamous cartel leader’s September trial, citing his long history of violence and instances in which he’s believed to have tried to whack past witnesses.

They’ve also requested that jurors be kept partially sequestered and subject to armed escort to and from a safe location during the three- to four-month trial.

The diminutive Sinaloa Cartel leader faces a rash of charges, including criminal enterprise and international cocaine trafficking.

Balarezo says the government is basing its fears on mere allegations of Guzmán’s violent behavior, based on “untested and suspect statements from cooperators seeking to reduce their own sentences.”

The lawyer adds that instead of enlisting an anonymous jury, jurors names could just be kept from the kingpin and media could be barred from reporting their identities.

Cogan has yet to rule on the motion.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/02/06/juror-on-el-chapos-trial-will-remain-anonymous/

Jurors in El Chapo’s trial will remain anonymous
By Emily Saul
February 6, 2018 | 12:22pm | Updated

Jurors seated in the upcoming Brooklyn federal trial of accused drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán will remain anonymous and partially sequestered, a judge has ruled.

The panel, which has yet to be selected, will be subject to the restrictions in order to “protect the integrity of the trial and to mitigate any fear of harassment or intimidation in the jurors’ minds,” Brooklyn federal-court Justice Brian Cogan wrote in court papers released Tuesday.

Jurors seated in the case, which is expected to last three or four months, will remain unnamed and sequestered from the public while in the courthouse and be escorted by armed Marshals to and from the building each day, Cogan ruled.

El Chapo’s attorney, Eduardo Balarezo, had staunchly opposed requests by prosecutors to subject the jurors to such a strict regimen, arguing it would make his client seem “dangerous” and undermine the presumption of innocence.

But “the government has presented strong and credible reasons to believe that the jury needs protection,” Cogan wrote in his decision. “Although defendant is not charged with violent crimes, the indictment alleges that defendant, as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, employed ‘sicarios,’ or hitmen, who a carried out hundreds of acts of violence, including murders, assaults, and kidnappings.”

Cogan also notes that juror protection is warranted given the number of third parties who have expressed interest in helping the Mexican drug lord. He pointed to a group of federal prisoners in California, who, following El Chapo’s extradition to the US, released a video “pledging to be ‘hitmen who are going to take car of [the defendant] and stating that ‘[h]ere you have more than 3,500 soldiers.’ ”

The infamous 60-year-old defendant is set to head to trial in September on criminal enterprise and drug-trafficking charges.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/04/12/el-chapo-uploaded-torture-videos-of-victims-to-youtube-lawyers/

El Chapo uploaded torture videos of victims to YouTube: lawyers
By Lia Eustachewich
April 12, 2018 | 10:53pm

El Chapo and his henchmen uploaded YouTube videos of them torturing *rivals — whom he requested be brought to him “bound and helpless,” say prosecutors who want to use the disturbing footage at his upcoming trial.

In court papers filed this week, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn portrayed Chapo — whose real name is Joaquín Guzmán — as a cold and calculating leader who went to deadly lengths to protect his venerable *Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico.

Chapo would order his “sic*arios” and “pistoleros” — hit men and gunmen — to “locate, kidnap, torture and interrogate” suspected members of rival gangs and videotape the brutality, prosecutors said in their filing.

“At the defendant’s explicit orders, his sicarios kidnapped rivals and brought them to him, often bound and helpless, and the defendant then personally interrogated the rivals,” they wrote.

“When they did not kill their rivals in shootouts, they abducted and interrogated them to garner intelligence about their rivals’ activities. The defendant ordered most of the captured rivals killed and their bodies disposed.”

In 2006, Chapo’s henchmen turned up two members of the rival Los Zetas cartel. After having lunch, he interrogated them and then had them beaten and shot in the head with a long gun, prosecutors wrote.

“The defendant then ordered his workers to dig a hole in the ground, throw the bodies in the hole and light the bodies on fire before burying them.”

One of the brutal interrogations posted on YouTube involved Chapo rival Israel Rincon Martinez, targeted for killing the son of one of Chapo’s allies.

In the 2010 footage, Rincon is bound and bruised before eventually being killed.

Prosecutors want jurors to see a 1993 video showing authorities seizing seven tons of cocaine in Tecate, Mexico, as well as seizures of heroin and cocaine in Queens and New Jersey. His trial is slated to begin on Sept. 5.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/11/05/el-chapo-jury-includes-michael-jackson-impersonator/

El Chapo meets Michael Jackson impersonator at jury selection
By Tina Moore, Emily Saul and Lia Eustachewich

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious Mexican drug lord facing life in prison as the boss of the world’s most bloodthirsty cartel, came face to face Monday with his potential jurors — including a Michael Jackson impersonator.

Forty-five prospective jurors underwent questioning in Brooklyn federal court during the first day of jury selection for the long-awaited trial, with one telling lawyers that he made a living imitating the late King of Pop.

That prompted Guzman lawyer Eduardo Balarezo to quip, “Show us the moonwalk!”

The prospective juror appeared to chuckle at the remark —- but prosecutors wanted him dismissed because there aren’t a lot of Jackson impersonators in the area, which could make him easily identifiable.

Identities of the 12 selected jurors and six alternates will remain anonymous, and they will be escorted to and from the courthouse every day by armed US Marshals.

Another prospective juror looked visibly shaken as she admitted to Judge Brian Cogan that she was scared to serve on the highly publicized case.

“They’re making threats to the family of jurors,” she said of Guzman’s family.

But she quickly changed her tune and said she would be willing to serve after Cogan asked her, “If I were to tell you that’s wrong, that there has been no threats made to jurors and no threats have been made against me… could you be fair and impartial?”

The judge wound up tossing the woman after, concluding, “She’s very easily scared. I think we need jurors in this case who are not easily intimidated.”

All 100 prospective panelists filled out questionnaires that include a query about whether they’d ever heard of the infamous defendant.

“One local deli near my work has a sandwich called the ‘el Chapo.’ It’s delicious,” one man wrote.

That answer prompted defense lawyer William Purpura to ask him: “That sandwich, may I ask, does it have bologna on it?”

“It’s got cream cheese, it’s a bagel, with lox — I don’t know if you’ve ever had lox — with capers, it’s a little spicy. I don’t know why they call it the ‘el Chapo’ but it’s delicious,” he answered.

Guzman — who gets served a bologna sandwich by the feds each day for lunch — didn’t appear to find the exchange amusing and sat sullen-faced, even as defense lawyer Balarezo cracked up.

The diminutive Guzman, 61, hardly made eye contact with any of the possible jurors, who took turns sitting no more than 10 feet away from him as they underwent questioning.

The jailed boss of the infamous boss of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel — whose nickname means “Shorty” for his small stature —appeared in court in a dark-blue suit and a white dress shirt with a spread collar that was unbuttoned at the top.

His beauty queen wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, is barred from the selection process as are all members of the public to protect jurors from any potential danger.

Seventeen potential jurors were dismissed Monday, including a middle-aged man who admitted he read the Wikipedia page for Guzman and a woman in her 20s who said she couldn’t be fair after watching “Narcos.” The hit Netflix series is about the late drug lord Pablo Escobar, Guzman’s dangerous Colombian counterpart.

Guzman, who’s twice escaped maximum-security prisons in Mexico, will spend weekdays of his trial locked up in Brooklyn instead of across the East River — out of fears he could be assassinated and to avoid the traffic nightmare caused by transporting him to court each day, a high-ranking police source told The Post.

Each Monday, Guzman, who’s in solitary confinement in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, will be taken via police escort along the Brooklyn Bridge to court. He’ll return to the MCC on Fridays for the weekend, the source said.

During his transport, the bridge will be briefly closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

“They talked about closing the bridge twice a day but that’s crazy. That would disrupt the whole city,” the source said.

Authorities were also concerned about “more than a breakout while moving him,” the source added. “We were worried about somebody killing him. It’s a drug war.”

Guzman was taken to court Monday in the pre-dawn hours. He had a similar police escort for pre-trial hearings.

Authorities have considered that Guzman could slip away in a style similar to Rédoine Faid, a convicted armed robber who escaped from French prison via helicopter and with the help of heavily armed gunmen in July. Faid was serving a 25-year sentence when he broke out of the lockup in Réau.

“El Chapo could try something like the escape outside Paris,” a source said.

In and around the courthouse, security was noticeably beefed up with bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors outside the courtroom. Only five members of the media are allowed inside during jury selection.

Guzman faces charges of funneling more than 200 tons of narcotics into the US through his lucrative cartel and employing sicarios, or hit men, to rub out witnesses and rivals.

The trial is expected to last as long as four months. Opening statements are expected Nov. 13.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/11/13/el-chapos-trial-opens-with-chilling-details/

El Chapo’s trial opens with chilling details
By Priscilla DeGregory, Emily Saul and Chris Perez
November 13, 2018 | 6:26pm | Updated November 13, 2018 | 7:35pm

Opening statements finally began Tuesday in the trial for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — with prosecutors describing some of the notorious accused drug lord’s most heinous acts for jurors, along with his weapons of choice.

“Some of his favorites include a diamond-encrusted handgun with his initials on it and a gold-plated AK-47,” said federal prosecutor Adam Fels.

He recounted how Guzman allegedly ordered hits on his own loved ones and used a small private army — consisting of hundreds of men “armed with assault rifles” — to take out his rivals.

“He ordered his hit men to locate, kidnap, torture, interrogate, shoot and kill those rivals,” Fels said. “Not even Guzman’s own family members were immune.”

In one instance, the 61-year-old defendant “ordered the murder of one of his cousins — simply because he was suspected of cooperating with authorities,” Fels said, noting how the accused Mexican kingpin’s thirst for blood helped fuel his “vast drug empire.”

“Money, drugs, murder and a vast global narcotics trafficking organization — that is what this case is about, and that is what the evidence in this case will prove,” Fels said.

Guzman’s defense team, meanwhile, claimed during its opening statements that prosecutors were trying to use him as a “scapegoat.”

“There’s another side to this story, an uglier side,” said attorney Jeffrey (((Lichtman))). “This is a case that will require you to throw out much of what you were taught.”

According to Lichtman, the real criminal mastermind is Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada — current leader of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. The lawyer described the 70-year-old former poppy-field worker as “the biggest drug trafficker in Mexico.”

“[Zambada] has been allowed to operate for the last 55 years because he pays for it,” Lichtman said. “He bribes the current president of Mexico and for good measure, the previous one as well.”

“The US government pretends to want him. But somehow they can’t figure out where he is,” Lichtman added.

He noted how Zambada’s own brother was cooperating with the US government in this case, along with two of his sons — one of whom is expected to be the prosecution’s first witness.

These are “people who will make your skin crawl when they testify,” Lichtman said. “The government is using these gutter human beings to build their case. … These are people who will be out soon among us. Some of them are already out.”

The government is willing to do this, Lichtman said, because “the conviction of Chapo Guzman is the biggest prize they could ever imagine.”

“Open your minds to the possibility that government officials can be bribed,” he told jurors. “That American law enforcement can also be crooked.”

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/11/14/this-tunnel-was-used-to-smuggle-1-ton-of-cocaine-into-the-us/

This tunnel was used to smuggle 1 ton of cocaine into the US
By Emily Saul, Priscilla DeGregory and Lia Eustachewich
November 14, 2018 | 4:11pm | Updated November 14, 2018 | 5:07pm

Brooklyn jurors in the El Chapo trial were given an inside look Wednesday into a clandestine tunnel once used to smuggle 1 ton of “nearly pure” cocaine from Mexico to the US.

Federal prosecutors revealed photos of the wrapped coke bricks and secret underpass while their first witness — a former special agent with US Customs — explained how the underground passage linked a home in Agua Prieta, Mexico, with a building in Douglas, Ariz. — about “two blocks” from a US Customs site.

The agent, Carlos Salazar, said he discovered the 40- to 50-foot tube in May 1990 thanks to a tip from an informant who was paid $500. Salazar had also closely tracked a truck seen leaving the Douglas building and eventually led authorities to find 1 ton of cocaine at another location.

Authorities unearthed the opening of the tunnel on the US side by jack-hammering through a concrete floor.

The tube, which was outfitted with lights, was no more than 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 3 to 4 feet wide — enough room for someone the size of 5-feet, 6-inch accused squat monster kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to stand nearly upright and smugglers to use little push carts to ferry kilos of cocaine between locations. The tunnel also was outfitted with a sump pump to keep water from pooling inside.

On the Mexican side, it was accessed from under a pool table in the home that lifted with a sophisticated hydraulics system, the same kind used in mechanic shops, Salazar said.

The load of cocaine that was recovered was packaged in bricks stamped with the labels “MR,” “OSOP” and “Yahama.”

“Those are the actual bricks or the kilo wrappings of coke that we discovered,” Salazar testified.

The drugs were tested by retired Drug Enforcement Administration chemist Robert Arnold, who said they came back as “nearly pure cocaine.”

“I found the cocaine was 95 percent” pure, Arnold testified.

It’s not yet clear how the secret tunnel is connected to Guzman, who had allegedly just been tapped the year before to lead the Sinaloa cartel’s Pacific Coast operations with his right-hand man, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

Zambada’s brother, Jesus Reynaldo Zambata – one of the prosecution’s many cooperating witnesses – is expected to testify against Guzman later Wednesday.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/11/19/el-chapo-allegedly-bribed-former-mexico-president-while-in-office/

El Chapo allegedly bribed former Mexican president while in office
By Emily Saul
November 19, 2018 | 12:05am | Updated November 19, 2018 | 8:55am

Enrique Peña Nieto and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Getty Images; AP


A cartel canary will continue to dish about accused drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in Brooklyn court Monday.

Jesus “El Rey” Zambada Garcia last week transfixed the courtroom with tales of bribery, baptisms and bloodshed as he faced off with his former boss.

This week, Zambada is expected to reveal he paid at least $6 million in hush money to the president of Mexico so that the Sinaloa Cartel could continue moving drugs through Mexico City, according to court transcripts made public Friday.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has denied taking the bribes, is just one of many officials Zambada has accused of accepting cartel funds.

Zambada estimated Thursday that he had paid around $300,000 a month to other public officials in Mexico City in order to keep them in the cartel’s pocket.

“One of my activities was to corrupt authorities,” said the accountant, whose older brother is Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, Chapo’s business partner.

In 2004, Zambada said, Guzman told him to visit a general and “give him a hug” — and a $100,000 payment.

The government witness also explained that he declined to let Guzman stay at his ranch alone with his hitmen following his 2001 prison escape, when a corrections officer nicknamed “Chito” rolled Guzman out of the pen in a laundry cart.

Zambada, 57, smiled as he recalled his brother discussing what to do with “Chito” when he wanted to spill his guts to police.

“I told him, ‘Well, let him turn himself in,’ ” Zambada testified. “ ‘What can he say, the truth?’ ”

So far, Zambada’s testimony has been sprinkled with never-before-heard anecdotes regarding Guzman, who was constantly running from the law following his prison escape.

After Zambada declined to let him borrow his ranch, Guzman lived with his gunman Barbarino for a while, even attending a baptism for his host’s son — and terrifying the priest.

“He was surprised, he looked a little bit nervous,” Zambada recalled of the priest walking into the christening, which was attended only by cartel members and their kin. “Chapo was coming out on the news all the time.”

The witness also testified that he heard Guzman reveling in the murder of a rival drug trafficker, saying “that if anything had ever given him pleasure, it was to have killed Ramon Arellano.”

Guzman, with arms crossed and eyes narrowed, has spent the trial eyeing his ex-deputy. Zambada has been hiding behind dark glasses.

 

[The Bobster]

https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/el-chapo-planned-to-smuggle-narcotics-inside-jalapenos-testimony/

El Chapo planned to smuggle narcotics inside jalapenos: testimony
By Emily Saul
November 20, 2018 | 6:41pm | Updated November 20, 2018 | 7:03pm

Cans of peppers that would have been used to hide drugs US Attorney's Office


Brooklyn federal prosecutors released photos and video on Tuesday that they say shows how drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman planned to smuggle narcotics stuffed into jalapenos across the Mexico-US border.

Former DEA agent Thomas Lenox took the stand at the accused kingpin’s drug-trafficking trial, where he recalled being summoned to Tijuana, Mexico, to inspect an unfinished tunnel in 1993.

The tunnel, Lenox testified, was hidden inside a compound on the Mexican side of the border, which sat just 50 feet from the official boundary line between Mexico and California.

The underground channel ran right underneath the border — 65 feet below the surface of the ground — and began to slope upward in the middle of an adjacent field some 1,500 feet away, the retired agent told the court.

While the billionaire drug lord is known for his fancy passageways — some hidden underneath everyday household items on hydraulic lifts — this tunnel was fairly crude and cramped, Lenox recalled.

“It was a very uncomfortable environment to be in,” he told jurors of the 4-foot-5-inch space, which was plagued by pools of water, “stale” air, and dim lighting.

The tunnel appeared to be aiming for a construction project in a California border town, he said.

Photos from the site show it was owned by a company called “Tia Anita,” which described itself as a “cannery and warehouse.”

Earlier Tuesday, Lenox testified that prior to the tunnel discovery, the DEA had intercepted a shipment of canned jalapenos in Tijuana from a fake company called “La Comadre.”

Jurors were given an empty pepper can to pass around.

Guzman became known as “El Rapido” — “the fast one” — in his early drug-trafficking days for the speed at which he could move cocaine across the border and into the United States.

While he relied heavily on tunnels, prosecutors have claimed he used other methods as well, including submarines, oil tankers and canned jalapenos.