In Brooklyn, El Paso and San Diego, Guzman is charged with participating in a continuing criminal enterprise under a federal law specifically targeting drug traffickers. Mexican authorities had said they captured Guzman partly because his representatives contacted filmmakers and actors about making his biopic.
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The US rock magazine Rolling Stone on Saturday published the interview that Guzman gave to the actors in an undisclosed jungle clearing in Mexico.
In the photographs, Penn, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap, is shown arriving with del Castillo at an airport, then at a hotel, and greeting the men who apparently took them to a small airstrip, from which they flew to the jungle camp to meet Guzman.
Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, right, is escorted by soldiers and marines to a waiting helicopter, at a federal hangar in Mexico City, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.
Gen. Arely Gomez confirmed Saturday that it was Penn and Del Castillo to whom Gomez was referring when she said earlier that Guzman’s communications with “actors and producers” had “formed a new line of investigation” before Guzman’s capture. The drug lord wanted the actress’s help in spearheading a movie project about his life. The world’s most-wanted drug lord…
Two hours before Pena Nieto announced El Chapo’s capture, the Navy issued a statement saying Gastelum had escaped in the firefight at the safe house.
Meanwhile Mexican authorities formally launched the process of shipping Guzman to the United States by sending Interpol Mexico agents to Guzman’s prison to execute two arrest warrants for his extradition.
As the raid was unfolding, Guzman escaped via a secret passage in the home that descended into a tunnel that led to the city’s storm drains, a senior law enforcement source told CNN.
Guzman faces federal indictments in Chicago and several other US jurisdictions, including San Diego, Texas, Florida and the southern and eastern district of NY.
Guzman’s attorney Juan Pablo Badillo has said that the defence already has filed six motions to challenge extradition requests. 3, after he escaped. The tunnel extended for about a mile underground and featured an adapted motorcycle on rails that officials believe was used to transport the tools used to create the tunnel, Monte Alejandro Rubido, the head of the Mexican national security commission, said in July.
Mexico’s willingness to extradite Guzman is a sharp turnaround from the last time he was captured in 2014. He said that they are usually turned down, but each one means a judge has to schedule a hearing. US Senator Marco Rubio, one of the Republicans running for his party’s nomination for the White House, said Penn’s efforts were outlandish, but not before dishing out a healthy plate of criticism on the star’s acting career.
Then-attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam said the extradition would happen only after he finished his sentence in Mexico in “300 or 400 years”.
But the legendary drug lord’s July 2015 escape embarrassed President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government.
Guzman was recaptured on Friday in the seaside city of Los Mochis, in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa, in a military operation that left five suspects dead. One marine was injured.
Penn’s account, published in Rolling Stone, featured an unapologetic Guzman touting himself as the biggest drug supplier in the world.
Penn did not respond directly to questions on whether it was appropriate for him to submit his story to Guzman for approval in advance of publication, or whether he took adequate information and operational security measures to protect his source.
Guzman denied responsibility for drug addiction and the prevalence of narcotics, dismissing such accusations “false”.
“He was interested in seeing the story of his life told on film, but would entrust its telling only to Kate”, wrote Penn, who appears in a photo posted with the interview shaking hands with Guzman.
Penn said Guzman was entirely unapologetic and when asked: “Of all the countries and cultures with whom you do business, which is the most hard?”
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