Drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is now back at the Altiplano maximum-security prison some 90 kilometers west of Mexico City while authorities seek to extradite him to the United States/AFP
Del Castillo, a Mexican-American who played a drug kingpin in a television series, brokered the now-notorious meeting between Guzman and US actor Sean Penn at an undisclosed jungle clearing in October, three months before the fugitive’s capture.
The government officials said investigators had monitored Penn and Del Castillo, taking photographs of the actors when they landed in Mexico, before their get-together with Guzman.
Following the meeting, troops entered Guzman’s remote mountain stronghold in northwestern Mexico in order to flush him out “toward a city,” a government official said on condition of anonymity.
Marines nearly captured Guzman in the mountains straddling the states of Sinaloa and Durango on October 6.
But Guzman grabbed his cook’s daughter and used her “as a human shield,” holding her in front of him as a helicopter hovered overhead, prompting the soldier to hold fire, the official said.
Guzman eventually made his way last week to the seaside city of Los Mochis in his native Sinaloa state, where he was captured Friday in a deadly military operation.
The other factor that led Guzman to Los Mochis was that he was “really very interested in meeting the actress again,” the official told reporters.
“This was an almost obsessive interest that turned into another incentive to go down to the city, where he wanted to meet with her,” the official said, adding that Guzman did not see the 43-year-old actress again.
Another official said Guzman, 58, used the codename “hermosa” (“beautiful”) when referring to the actress, who became famous for her role as a drug lord in the TV series “The Queen of the South.”
DVDs of the show were found in the house that marines raided in Los Mochis.
Guzman fled the house through a tunnel during a gunfight between troops and his henchmen, but he was caught later after he had stolen a car, capping a months-long manhunt involving 2,500 investigators and federal forces, officials said.
– Meeting investigated –
One of the world’s most-wanted criminals was returned to the same prison he escaped from six months ago when his henchmen dug a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) tunnel that opened into a hole in his cell’s shower.
Guzman is regularly being moved to new cells in different floors and a guard is posted in front of it 24 hours per day to prevent him getting away once more.
About The Author
