U.S. actor Sean Penn secretly interviewed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman before the Mexican drug kingpin’s recapture for an article that appeared Saturday, January 9, in Rolling Stone magazine.
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Guzman was arrested Friday after a gun battle in his home state of Caliacan that killed five and injured one Mexican marine.
Top officials in the party of President Enrique Pena Nieto also floated the idea of extradition, which they had ruled out before Guzman’s embarrassing escape from Mexico’s top maximum-security prison on July 11.
The AP notes that Penn’s interview helped lead Mexican police to El Chapo, who was captured on Friday and is awaiting probable extradition to the U.S.to face a slew of drug and other charges.
The authorities said they could have fired on Guzman at his hideout, but decided against because he was with two women and a child.
Mexican police present the world’s top drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to the media, after recapturing him following his prison escape.
Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, was once described by the U.S. Treasury as “the most powerful drug trafficker in the world”.
Guzman was detained in a military raid in his native Sinaloa on Friday, and had been on the run since he escaped from maximum security prison in July previous year.
“Another important aspect that allowed us to pinpoint his location was having discovered Guzman Loera’s intention to film a biographical movie through establishing communication with actors and producers, which formed a new line of investigation”, Gomez said. “Why? Because he’s Mexican, and Mexico has wise laws and a just constitution”.
On Twitter, the scandal surrounding Rolling Stone’s 2014 story “A Rape on Campus”, which has been retracted and is the subject of more than one lawsuit against the magazine, was brought up.
The uneducated son of a farmer turned cartel kingpin, with a beauty queen wife and two Houdini-like escapes from prison under his belt, Guzman, known by the nickname El Chapo, wanted to make his own biopic.
Guzman is facing multiple conspiracy counts in Chicago, which has for years been his heroin distribution hub for much of the United States.
Guzman’s prison escape – his second in 14 years – embarrassed the Mexican government and became a symbol of its corruption.
Argentine author and journalist Diego Fonseca says he was approached by a publishing house he can’t name in 2012 and told that Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was looking for a biographer.
The U.S. has sought Guzman’s extradition and a Mexican law enforcement official says the country is prepared to do it. – Katherine Corcoran.
He said that the defence has already filed six motions challenging the extradition request.
“With the recapture of Guzman, the respective extradition proceedings should begin”, the Attorney General’s Office said in a press release. “Our country must respect national sovereignty, the sovereignty of its institutions to impart justice”. He downplayed injuries to his face and leg reported by the authorities, saying: “Not like they said”.
The pair took a photo shaking hands, and parted ways after a brief amount of time together.
The attorney general’s office noted that Guzman’s lawyers have already filed various appeals, some overruled and some still pending.
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Mexico’s most notorious drug lord wanted to turn his story into a Hollywood blockbuster – a plan that ultimately led to the fugitive’s capture and sent him back to the same prison from which he escaped.
