Mexico plans to extradite drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the USA after security forces recaptured the fugitive cartel leader Friday in the northwestern Sinaloa state.
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Sean Penn’s meeting with Joaquin Guzman was arranged through Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, known for her television portrayal of a female drug lord in the soap opera La Reina del Sur.
After Guzman escaped prison last summer, Penn posed the idea of the magazine interview, writing, “Kate agreed to make the bridge, sending our names for vetting across the border”.
One of Guzman’s key tunnel builders led officials to the neighbourhood, which authorities watched for a month, according to Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez.
The official said the meeting between Penn and Guzman was held in Tamazula, a community in Durango state that neighbors Sinaloa, home of Guzman’s drug cartel.
The interview, in which Penn visited Guzman in his Mexican hideout, was published by Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday evening local time, a day after Guzman’s arrest.
Mexican authorities said they captured Guzman partly because he or his representatives contacted filmmakers and actors about making his biopic.
Guzman allegedly told Penn in a video recording that he had tried drugs but was not addicted to it and had not taken any drugs in the last 20 years.
Mexican officials say they caught the drug kingpin after a shootout with Mexican marines in Los Mochis, Mexico.
Hollywood actor Sean Penn met with El Chapo while he was on the run in Mexico a year ago.
Federal Police officers patrol the area near the Almoloya prision where “El Chapo Guzman” …
In a statement welcoming Guzman’s recapture, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Guzman had caused “significant violence, suffering and corruption on multiple continents”.
In a stunning admission of his criminal enterprise, Penn says Guzman told him over sips of tequila that “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”.
Recapturing Guzman proved tricky, as the drug lord attempted to evade capture by escaping again through the sewers, emerging four blocks away and stealing a auto to get out of the town.
After his capture on Friday, Guzman glared when soldiers twisted his head towards TV cameras during a perp-walk in Mexico City.
Penn said Guzman told him: “I don’t want to be portrayed as a nun”.
El Chapo’s escape was the second time he managed to do so from a maximum security prison in Mexico. The team noticed a lot of activity at the house Wednesday and the arrival of a vehicle early Thursday morning. It did not indicate when the hearings would start, and noted that Guzman’s lawyers could seek appeals.
Guzman, who was named Public Enemy Number One by the Chicago Crime Commission in 2013, has been indicted by at least seven United States federal district courts.
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Guzman’s operation is also blamed for significant contributions to the United States’ illegal drug trade.
