Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is made to face the media as he is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican soldiers and marines at a federal hangar in Mexico City last Friday.
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MEXICO CITY (AP) Recently captured drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was unapologetic for running one of the world’s biggest drug trafficking organizations in a Rolling Stone interview with American actor Sean Penn published late Saturday.
Now a Mexican official has revealed that it was the Penn interview that led the authorities to Guzman in a rural part of Durango state in October.
Due to the nature of Guzman’s situation, it was impossible to do an interview in person, and Mr Penn sent questions which he replied to via videotape.
And he added proudly: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”.
It was from that prison that Guzman escaped on July 11, sneaking into a hole in his cell’s shower that led to a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) tunnel outside the prison.
That echoes comments made by Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez, who on Friday said that the drug boss’ yearning for the silver screen had helped bring him down.
Their initial conversation covered topics such as the Middle East and meeting Pablo Escobar – “Yes, I met him once at his house”. McDonough responded that he didn’t want to get ahead of any possible action, but that it “poses a lot of very interesting questions, both for him and for others involved in this…so-called interview”. He said no, because “the day I don’t exist, it’s not going to decrease” drug trafficking.
Guzman, 58, was recaptured on Friday after months on the run.
Well, as for being free, – happy, because freedom is really nice, and pressure, well, for me it’s normal, because i’ve had to be careful for a few years now in certain and, no, I don’t feel anything that hurts my health or my mind.
Marines formed a cordon around the block on Saturday morning, and said they believed Guzman had been in the property for around 48 hours before the raid was launched.
A picture of Guzman in Rolling Stone shaking hands with Penn is dated 2 October. “We are the consumers, and as such, we are complicit in every murder, and in every corruption of an institution’s ability to protect the quality of life for citizens of Mexico and the United States that comes as a result of our insatiable appetite for illicit narcotics”.
The attorney general’s office noted that Guzman’s lawyers have already filed various appeals, some overruled and some still pending. “We’ve had cases that take six years”. “He shouldn’t be extradited because Mexico has a fair Constitution”, Badillo told reporters outside the Altiplano prison near Mexico City, where Guzman was sent following his arrest.
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It follows claims that Guzman was planning to make a biopic of his infamous life and had contacted actresses and producers for the film, which would have undoubtedly featured his Hollywood-style escape from a maximum-security prison in July 2015.
