MEXICO CITY (AP) – Recaptured drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s secret interview with USA actor Sean Penn helped authorities locate his whereabouts, a Mexican law enforcement official said late Saturday.
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Another leg of the day-long trip through central Mexico was on a light aircraft allegedly fitted with equipment to evade radar detection, Penn said in a story published in Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday.
Latinos across the global, as well as those who have followed “El Chapo’s” story, have been wondering if the drug lord would be extradited, since the news broke early Friday morning of Guzman’s capture. “So it sells and sells”.
The drug lord was captured in the Mexican city of Los Mochis on Friday after about six months as a fugitive, following his daring escape from a maximum-security prison in that country.
Marines were met by gunfire when they swooped in on Friday, leaving five suspects dead and one marine wounded. One marine was injured. He reportedly made his 2001 escape from the maximum security prison in a laundry cart, though some have discounted that version.
Guzman’s escaped prison twice through underground tunnels. Mexican marines pursued the wily kingpin through storm drains before intercepting his getaway in a hijacked auto.
The attorney general’s office said it received two United States extradition requests a year ago on a slew of charges, including drug trafficking and murder, and that it later obtained arrest warrants to ship him across the border.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch didn’t bring up extradition in a statement to the media.
She added that security forces had been unable to shoot at him on that occasion because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl.
In a text message exchange days after their meeting, Guzman discusses a marine helicopter raid that nearly captured him on October 6. The Mexican government determined they were valid within the extradition treaty and sent them to a panel of federal judges, who gave orders for detention on July 29 and September 8, after Guzman had escaped.
“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”, he told Penn, according to The New York Times.
With the headaches that Guzman has given President Pena Nieto, whose reputation was severely bruised by the escape, perhaps extradition is the safer bet.No detail was given about the time frame for an extradition but experts say the process could take months, the BBC’s Katy Watson in Mexico City reports.
Gomez said Guzman even “established contact with actresses and producers” through his attorneys.
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 ideal the audacious escape plan. An assault rifle had a 40-mm grenade launcher and at least one grenade.
Guzman said in the video that he doesn’t believe he is responsible for drug addiction in the world, according to Penn.
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In 2014, then-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told the Associated Press that he wouldn’t accept El Chapo’s extradition to the USA until after the drug boss had completed his sentence in Mexico, “300 or 400 years later”.
