Extraditing Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States could take a year or more, Mexican authorities said on Monday, while the slippery drug lord waits in the prison he previously escaped from.
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It could be “at least a year” – and perhaps as long as six years – before he crosses the U.S.’s southern border, the head of Mexico’s extradition office, Jose Manuel Merino, told Radio Fórmula on Monday.
On Friday, Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez said that Guzman’s contact with actors and producers for a possible film about him helped give law enforcement a lead on tracking and capturing the world’s most notorious drug kingpin.
In Chicago, Guzman has been dubbed “Public Enemy No. 1”, and prosecutors there say the city is a major hub for Guzman’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
But on Monday, the Obama administration declined to pressure Mexico, perhaps wary of a backlash.
Guzman’s attorney Juan Pablo Badillo has said the defense has already filed six motions to challenge extradition requests.
The 58-year-old is now being held at Altiplano Prison in central Mexico and he is expected to be extradited to the states to face multiple drugs charges.
During his previous 17 month stint behind bars, Guzman asked his lawyers to begin the process of trade-marking his name with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola said.
Since then, the Mexican authorities have increased security around him reinforcing floors with a web of steel rods coated with cement, installed electronic locks and added more security cameras to monitor his movements.
On Saturday, just hours after the shootout that led to the arrest of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the actor Sean Penn said he covertly interviewed the kingpin in the mountains of northern Mexico months earlier, a revelation that triggered criticism of the government’s handling of the manhunt and raised questions about the possibility of major intelligence breaches.
It is still unclear when exactly Rose will sit down with Penn and when the interview will air. Penn met with the crime group leader in October to gather information for a story for an American magazine, Rolling Stone.
Guzman’s powerful Sinaloa cartel smuggles huge shipments of cocaine and marijuana as well as manufacturing and transporting methamphetamines and heroin, mostly to the US.
Video recorded by the marines’ helmet cameras released by Mexico’s government shows the injured marine screaming, “They got me, they got me”. Penn described Guzman as “entirely unapologetic”. “It is true that consumption, day after day, becomes bigger and bigger”.
Mexico is formally starting extradition proceedings against Guzman, President Enrique Pena Nieto’s government said late on Sunday, in the strongest sign yet that it intends to send him to the United States.
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Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has offered up his thoughts on the secret interview, although he declined to comment on whether us authorities would be helping their Mexican counterparts in their questioning.
