No Escape This Time: El Chapo Convicted in U.S. The Daily Beast February 12, 2019 12:35 pm
- The Dinnerplate
- Feb 12, 2019
- 3 min read
No Escape This Time: El Chapo Convicted in U.S.š·
The Daily Beast
February 12, 2019 12:35 pm
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Joaquin āEl Chapoā Guzman, the Mexican drug cartel leader accused of sending a half-million pounds of cocaine into the U.S. over 30 years, was found guilty in Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday.
After two escapes from prison in Mexico, it appears Guzman, 61, will spend most of the rest of his life behind bars in the U.S.
Prosecutors charged him in a conspiracy as head of the Sinaloa cartel, which they described as āthe largest drug-trafficking organization in the world.ā His three-month trial detailed the ruthless business of running the cartel.
āMoney. Cash. Murder,ā Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fels said to the jury in his opening statement. āA vast global narcotics trafficking empireāthatās what this case is about, and what the evidence will show.ā
So expansive was Guzmanās empire that a mere four shipments could provide āmore than a line of cocaine for every single person in the United State,ā Fels also claimed.
The illicit proceeds afforded Guzman a flashy, luxe life, prosecutors charged.
āWho has a zoo with little trains? Who flies around in jets and helicopters? Who has diamond encrusted pistols? Who lives in the mountain tops and has his food flown to him?ā Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg told jurors during her closing arguments.
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āThe answer is common sense: a boss of the Sinaloa Cartel does this,ā she reportedly said.
People who got in Guzmanās way, be they witnesses or uncorrupted government officials, would be killed off, often with assassins known as āsicarios,ā prosecutors claimed.
A witness also testified that Guzman himself carried out multiple executions. In one case, Guzman allegedly beat two rivals with a stick and then threw their āragged dollā bodies toward the foot of a fireābefore shooting them both in the head, according to reports.
āHe was a hands-on leader,ā Fels also said.
Jesus Zambada Garcia, the brother of Guzmanās purported partner-in-crime, revealed how the cartelās structure was rather corporate.
Zambada told jurors that he joined up with the cartel in 1997 and set up an accounting system. Between 1998 and 2008, Zambada ran three warehouses in Mexico City, or ābodegas,ā as he called them in Spanish. These ābodegasā were used to move coke into the United States. During Zambadaās decade at the helm of this Mexico City operation, some 80 to 100 tons of coke were transported from his ābodegasā across the border every year, he said.
A management hierarchy was also key to the Sinaloa organization. Guzman and Ismael āEl Mayoā Zambada reigned supreme. Below them were sub-leaders such as Zambada, who ran distribution centers, followed by sicarios. And corrupt government officials made it all possible, Zambada said.
Guzmanās defense team, led by high-profile lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman, seized on corruption in Mexico, portraying him as a scapegoat for āEl Mayo.ā
Despite indictment and a $5 million bounty on his head, El Mayo has somehow managed to evade capture, Lichtman told jurors.
āHe bribed the entire government of Mexicoāincluding the current president of Mexico,ā Lichtman claimed, arguing āthe current and former president of Mexico received hundreds of millions in bribes from Mayo...ā
Mexicoās president from 2006 to 2012, Felipe Calderon, denied the allegations on Twitter shortly thereafter.
Judge Brian Cogan told the jury to ignore Lichtman's allegations of shady backroom dealing, telling the that prosecutorsā motives in bringing a case against Guzman didn't matter.
Guzmanās associate reportedly testified at a later time, however, that he gave former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto an $100 million payoff.
Meanwhile, Guzmanās many alleged attempts to evade justice -- he escaped prison in 2001 via laundry cart and then again in 2015 via tunnel -- made the narrative even more gripping. (In a testament to the made-for-TV nature of the case, Alejandro Edda, who plays Guzman on the Netflix drama Narcos, came to observe him in court.)
Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, who claimed to have been Guzmanās lover, told the jury about one of Guzmanās dramatic escapes, from early 2014.
She and Guzman were in bed when they woke to his secretary, Condor.
āWake up! Theyāre on us!ā she recalled Condor warning at about 4 a.m.
Condor and Guzman bolted into the bathroom and called for Sanchez. The men lifted a lid off the bathtub with a āpistonālike mechanism, revealing a set of stairs that ultimately led to a tunnel.
āHe went off first, he left us behind, ā Sanchez recalled of Guzman. āHe was naked.ā
Guzman was tracked down not long after at the Hotel Miramar, in Mazatlan. After a days-long manhunt upon receiving cartel intel, DEA agent Victor Vazquez and a team of Mexican Marines closed in on the hotel. After his team swept the hotel, they brought Guzman to a garage. He was on his knees.
Guzman would break out of prison again the next year. When Guzman was recaptured again in 2016, however, it stuck.
His subsequent extradition led to the marathon trial and todayās verdict.
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