Actor Sean Penn has been taking some flak in Hollywood and on social media for his recent interview in Rolling Stone with Mexican drug cartel leader El Chapo, but now an American official has confirmed that the interview was key to helping authorities find and arrest the wanted man.
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Mexico has begun the process of extraditing drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the United States after the famed fugitive was recaptured following a dramatic, months-long hunt featuring movie stars, sewer escapes and bloody shootouts.
“In the event that the Foreign Ministry would consider that there is sufficient evidence to give the green light to the extradition, he (El Chapo) could still file an appeal”, said José Manuel Merino Madrid.
Of his first impressions of Guzman, Penn says: “My mind is an instant flip book to the hundreds of pictures and news reports I had scoured”.
In the meantime, they have beefed up security at the Altiplano prison west of the capital, a facility from which the kingpin had escaped in July 2014 – in what was his second jailbreak.
Two photos, apparently taken from a distance, show a man resembling Penn and a woman, identified as Del Castillo, arriving at the airport in the western city of Guadalajara on October 2. It’s not clear exactly how Penn’s meeting facilitated the original raid, or who was watching him, since the Mexican source on that information has remained anonymous.
Guzmán’s associates dug the tunnel that led to his cell over the course of a year, and on the day of his escape, Guzmán hopped on a motorbike at the base of the tunnel and rode to safety in a house outside the prison gates.
In the interview in Rolling Stone, Guzman defended his role as the head of the world’s biggest drug-trafficking organization, blamed for thousands of killings.
Penn has been under fire from some journalists on both sides of the border who felt the actor was too soft on Guzman’s violent history as a drug trafficker.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman faces drug trafficking and homicide charges in the United States and the extradition could take years or even days depending on the Mexican foreign ministry.
On Sunday a federal official told AFP that the attorney general’s office wanted to talk with Penn and del Castillo about their secretive meeting.
Mexican officials have said that Guzman’s contacts with Penn and del Castillo helped them track down the fugitive and they raided his hideout a few days after they met. Guzman evaded authorities then, but was finally captured Friday in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. “We’ll see what happens”.
Mexican authorities said they were tracking Penn during his visits with El Chapo.
Mexican authorities say they’ve formally notified Guzman, whose capture Friday came six months after he broke out of a Mexican prison, that arrest warrants from the US are being processed.
The actor was criticised for the interview – a White House spokesman said it was “maddening”, while Republican Marco Rubio said it was “grotesque”.
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During the interview with Mr Penn, the drug lord declared: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats”.
