A Mexican law enforcement official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity, said it was the Penn interview that led authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October.
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Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, from his video interview published by Rolling Stone magazine.
El Chapo hasn’t done any drugs in the last 20 years, he told Penn.
Mexican authorities announced Saturday they will begin the process of extraditing drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States, as his lawyer vowed a tough legal battle.
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 – his second from a Mexican prison.
“If one of these American actors who have benefited from the greatness of this country who have made money from our free enterprise system, want to go fawn over a criminal and drug trafficker in their interviews, they have a Constitutional right to do it”, Rubio said to host George Stephanopoulos.
Following the October rendezvous, Penn continued to have correspondence with El Chapo – who famously had his cartel tunnel him out of Mexico’s most secure prison – via instant messenger BBM.
A Mexican government source told Reuters authorities were considering whether to investigate Penn and a Mexican actress who helped him.
Penn’s interview marks the first and only the drug lord has ever given, which Penn said left him “no precedent by which to measure the hazards”.
According to Penn, Guzman received several movie offers while in prison, but instead he chose to make his own.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) slammed left-wing Hollywood star Sean Penn for interviewing the escaped Mexican drug lord known as “El Chapo”, calling Penn’s actions “grotesque” Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “Never”, El Chapo told Penn.
Penn’s rare access to the capo was assisted by Mexican actress Kate del Castillo.
Another official said that while a reporter could interview a drug cartel suspect, Penn was “not a journalists”. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats”.
Penn said Guzman sent engineers to Germany for three months of training on how to avoid problems when excavating near a low-lying water table beneath the prison where he was being held in order to flawless the audacious escape plan.
Prosecutors say Guzman is responsible for thousands of killings and for inciting violence in border cities such as Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, in his bid to control shipping routes. He could be extradited to the United States, perhaps Brooklyn, where he has been indicted by a grand jury. Guzman is included in at least seven drug-related indictments in various US jurisdictions.
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Before he was incarcerated in February 2014, Guzman had been on the run for more than 13 years after escaping another maximum-security facility by bribing guards and officials who allowed Guzman to be smuggled out the front door in a laundry basket. Now that he is recapture, Mexico has to start processing the extradition requests anew, according to the law.
