- Reportes de las autoridades señalan que Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán fue ubicado la noche del viernes por elementos militares y de la PGR durante una fiesta en un hotel de Mazatlán (Hotel Miramar).
- Fue trasladado a la Ciudad de México donde será verificada su identidad por medio de sus huellas dactilares y pruebas de ADN. La foto es de NYT, la información primera de la agencia AP
Una
imagen difundida por el NYT muestra al capo detenido por elementos militares,
aunque autoridades no se han pronunciado al respecto.
REFORMA
/ Redacción, on line..
Con información de AP
Hora de publicación: 10:02 hrs
Ciudad de México (22 febrero 2014).- Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, líder del Cártel de Sinaloa, fue capturado, confirmaron funcionarios de Estados Unidos y México.
Con información de AP
Hora de publicación: 10:02 hrs
Ciudad de México (22 febrero 2014).- Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, líder del Cártel de Sinaloa, fue capturado, confirmaron funcionarios de Estados Unidos y México.
De
acuerdo a reportes, el narcotraficante fue localizado anoche por elementos
militares y de la Procuraduría General de la República (PGR) en un hotel de
Mazatlán, Sinaloa, mientras se encontraba en un convivio.
En
esta localización también intervino la inteligencia de Estados Unidos,
indicaron fuentes oficiales.
La
PGR realiza pruebas de ADN al hombre detenido para asegurar la identidad de
Guzmán.
Desde
hace cinco días, Sinaloa fue un blanco de las autoridades, principalmente de la
Marina y la PGR, que comenzaron con una serie de cateos en la búsqueda de
operadores de "El Chapo" e Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
En
uno de los cateos realizado el 20 de enero, la Marina halló una propiedad de
Griselda Pérez López, ex esposa del capo.
En
ese lugar fue detenido Jesús Peña González "El 20" y otros
integrantes del Cártel, que han aportado información a las autoridades.
El
sinaloense se enfrenta a múltiples acusaciones federales de narcotráfico en
Estados Unidos y está en la lista de los más buscados-de la Departamento
Estadounidense Antidrogas (DEA).
Su
imperio de la droga se extiende a lo largo de América del Norte, pero también
llega a lugares tan lejanos como Europa y Australia.
El
19 de enero de 2001, escondido en un carrito de lavandería, "El
Chapo" se fugó del penal Puente Grande, ubicado en Jalisco.
REFORMA publicó el 19 de enero que a 13 años de su evasión, el Gobierno federal apostaba a la recaptura del sinaloense con el rastreo de familiares, amigos, socios y mandos que lo protegen.
REFORMA publicó el 19 de enero que a 13 años de su evasión, el Gobierno federal apostaba a la recaptura del sinaloense con el rastreo de familiares, amigos, socios y mandos que lo protegen.
El
Gabinete de Seguridad elaboró a mediados del año pasado un detallado reporte de
su círculo más cercano, información que actualizó en octubre.
El
documento integra datos biográficos de 22 familiares del capo, 21 colaboradores
y 27 personajes que le brindan protección institucional.
Así
como fotografías inéditas de estas personas, entre las que se encuentran siete
parejas sentimentales del líder del Cártel de Sinaloa con sus respectivos
hijos.
De
acuerdo con el informe, en la última década Guzmán ha permanecido la mayoría
del tiempo escondido en zonas inaccesibles del Triángulo Dorado, principalmente
en seis puntos de Sinaloa y en 12 de Durango.
En
más de un lustro, el Gobierno sólo detectó a "El Chapo" en dos zonas
urbanas: Culiacán, Sinaloa y Los Cabos, Baja California Sur. En ambos sitios
logró huir.
Con
información de AP
Leer
más: http://www.reforma.com/nacional/articulo/732/1462290/?Titulo=cae-joaquinel-chapo-guzman#ixzz2u4h2W8v7
**
Cae "El Chapo": funcionario de EU
La agencia The Associated Press indicó que un funcionario estadounidense de alto rango le informó que Guzmán fue capturado con vida en Mazatlán.
AP Y AFP
22/02/2014 10:25 AM (publicado en Milenio)
Washington
El capo del Cártel de Sinaloa del narcotráfico mexicano, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, fue detenido durante la noche en un hotel de Mazatlán, en México, por autoridades mexicanas y de Estados Unidos, se enteró The Associated Press el sábado.
Un funcionario estadounidense de alto rango dijo que Guzmán fue capturado con vida en la ciudad, en la costa del Pacífico. El funcionario, que no estaba autorizado a hablar sobre el arresto, dio la información bajo condición de no ser identificado.
"Hemos estado monitoreándolo activamente durante cinco semanas. Por esta presión, escapó (de Culiacán) en los últimos dos días a Mazatlán", dijo a la AFP un oficial de Seguridad estadunidense a condición de anonimato.
"Un pequeño contingente de personas estaba con él" al momento de la detención, añadió la fuente, que precisó que el detenido será trasladado a Ciudad de México.
Guzmán se enfrenta a múltiples acusaciones federales de narcotráfico en Estados Unidos y está en la lista de los más buscados-de la Departamento Estadunidense Antidrogas (DEA).
Su imperio de la droga se extiende a lo largo de América del Norte, pero llega también a lugares tan lejanos como Europa y Australia.
El Cártel de Sinaloa ha estado muy involucrado en la sangrienta guerra contra las drogas que ha azotado partes de México desde hace varios años.
Desde el pasado día 13, fuerzas de seguridad mexicana iniciaron un fuerte e ininterrumpido operativo en Culiacán, capital de Sinaloa, del que se habían dado escuetos detalles oficiales y que según la prensa tenía como objetivo la captura de "El Chapo" y de su socio Ismael 'Mayo' Zambada, uno de los principales líderes del cártel de Sinaloa.
Fruto del operativo, el viernes fue detenido Jesús Peña González, uno de los jefes de seguridad de 'Mayo' Zambada.
"El Chapo" Guzmán se escapó en 2001 de la prisión de Puente Grande, Jalisco (oeste), considerada de máxima seguridad, escondido en un carro de lavandería.
Además de ser el narcotraficante más buscado por Estados Unidos, es considerado por la revista Forbes como el delincuente más poderoso del mundo.
Por la captura de Guzmán, la fiscalía general mexicana ofrecía una recompensa de 30 millones de pesos (unos 2.3 millones de dólares) mientras que Estados Unidos puso un precio de cinco millones de dólares.
*
La nota original...publicada poco después de las 9 de la mañana
Most-Wanted Drug Lord Is Captured in Mexico
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and GINGER THOMPSON.
FEB. 22, 2014
MEXICO CITY — The world’s most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, has been captured, a senior American law enforcement official said Saturday, ending a 13-year manhunt for the chief supplier of illegal drugs to the United States and much of the world.
Mr. Guzmán, whose nickname means Shorty, had eluded the authorities time and again since he escaped from a prison in a laundry basket just before an extradition order to the United States. He faces a bounty of drug trafficking and other charges stemming from a multibillion-dollar drug empire.
Few details were available on Saturday morning, but a picture of Mr. Guzmán, who appeaered to be handcuffed and with a few cuts to his face and torso, circulated among law enforcement officials. So hidden was he that there was uncertainty what he looked like, but American officials believe they have the right man. Mexican marines captured him in the Pacific beach resort area of Mazatlan. There were no reports of shots fired. In the past year, several of his top associates had been detained and crime analysts who follow the drug world had speculated his days were increasingly numbered.
Mr. Guzmán took on near-mythic status, landing on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people and talked about his legendary exploits. He picked up the tab for entire restaurants, or so the stories go, so diners would remain silent about his outings and, according to a leaked diplomatic cable, he surrounded himself with an entourage of 300 armed men for protection. Narcocorridos, folk ballads in tribute to drug lords, were sung in his honor.
It seemed as if he was always tipped off or managed to slither away just as Mexican forces, often relying on American intelligence, closed in several times in the past few years.
In 2012, it appeared he was hiding in a mansion in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, around the time then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with foreign ministers in the same town. A raid the next day failed to capture him.
While Mr. Guzmán is the most prominent drug lord to fall, the practical effect of his end remained unclear. He was considered the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest and most powerful cartel with tentacles on every continent. Security analysts, however, have long suspected that, as Mexican and American authorities ratcheted up their pursuit, much of the day-to-day management fell to subordinates who remain at large.
Another powerful group, the Zetas, has emerged with brutal violence to battle Mr. Guzmán’s organization, raising questions about whether the focus on dismantling that group gave Mr. Guzmán something of a free pass.
Still, Mr. Guzmán’s fall carried a potent symbolic boost for Mexican security forces, which have killed or captured 25 of the 37 most-wanted organized crime leaders announced in 2010.
Mr. Guzmán boasted a rags-to-riches story that only fed the legend. He was born in poverty in the foothills of the Sierra Madre in northwestern Sinaloa State and dropped out of school by third grade. His first foray into drug smuggling came in the late 1980s, when, according to the State Department, he began working for Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, once Mexico’s biggest cocaine dealer, as an air logistics expert.
Mr. Guzmán astutely exploited the cocaine boom in the United States at the time, making valuable contacts along the transport chain from Barranquilla, in Colombia, to Arizona.
By the time the Mexican authorities captured Mr. Felix Gallardo in 1989, Mr. Guzmán inherited one of his smuggling routes and began forming his own, mushrooming cartel.
He was charged in the United States with money laundering and racketeering in March 1993 and three months later he was arrested and convicted on drug and homicide charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico.
He said he was a farmer and merchant earning approximately $6,000 monthly.
The drug and racketeering indictments piled up. One in 1994 said Mr. Guzmán continued operating his organization through his brother, Arturo Guzmán Loera, while in prison in Mexico, arranging cocaine shipments from South America to the United States. Then, in January 2001, Mr. Guzmán’s criminal career took a stunning turn. He escaped from the maximum-security prison in Guadalajara — the heart of Mr. Felix Gallardo’s cartel operations. According to popular folklore, he was wheeled out in a laundry cart, with assistance from the prison authorities.
His life on the lam gave rise to all manner of rumors about his whereabouts. President Felipe Calderón wondered aloud, in a New York Times interview in fall 2011, after Mr. Guzmán’s latest bride traveled to Los Angeles to give birth to twins, if Mr. Guzmán was actually in the United States. In the past year, the American and Mexican authorities stepped up sanctions to pressure the Guzmán family. Yet, the Sinaloa Cartel has grown steadily since his escape, expanding into marijuana and heroin.
In the end, Mr. Guzmán’s fall, may hardly mean the end of his empire. There simply may be “a redistribution of power,” said Malcolm Beith, a journalist who wrote “The Last Narco,” describing the hunt for Mr. Guzmán.
Correction: February 22, 2014
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified where Joaquín Guzmán Loera appeared to be hiding in 2012. It was in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, not Baja, Calif.
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and GINGER THOMPSONFEB. 22, 2014
MEXICO CITY — Just before 7 a.m. on Saturday, dozens of soldiers and police officers descended on a condominium tower in Mazatlán, Mexico, a beach resort known as much as a hangout for drug traffickers as for its seafood and surf.
The forces were following yet another tip about the whereabouts of one of the world’s most wanted drug kingpins, Joaquín Guzmán Loera — known as El Chapo, which means “Shorty” — who had eluded such raids for 13 years since escaping from prison, by many accounts in a laundry cart. With an army of guards and lethally enforced loyalty, he reigned over a worldwide, multibillion-dollar drug empire that supplied much of the cocaine and marijuana to the United States despite a widespread, yearslong manhunt by American and Mexican forces.
This time, however, Mr. Guzmán, believed to be in his mid-50s, did not slip out a door, disappear into the famed mountains around his northwest Mexico home, or prove to be absent, as he had in so many previous attempts to apprehend him. He apparently had no time to reach for the arsenal of guns and grenades he had amassed or dash into a storm drain or tunnel, as authorities said he recently did minutes ahead of pursuers.
Mexican marines and the police, aided by information from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, immigration and customs officials and the United States Marshals Service, took him into custody without firing a shot, according to Mexican officials.
Mexico’s attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said a later forensic exam made it “100 percent” certain the man was Mr. Guzmán; the tests were done to avoid the kind of embarrassment Mexican officials faced in June 2012 when they announced the arrest of Mr. Guzmán’s son, only to later discover it was not him.
Mr. Guzmán faces a slew of drug trafficking and organized crime charges in the United States, which had offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest in the hopes of dealing a crippling blow to an organization that is the country’s top provider of illicit drugs.
Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel is considered the largest and most powerful trafficking organization in the world, with a reach as far as Europe and Asia, and has been a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico.
“Big strike,” said a Twitter posting by former President Felipe Calderón, who had made cracking down on drug gangs a hallmark of his tenure.
But it was the forces under the control of President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose resolve to fight drug traffickers was questioned, that produced the biggest arrest in a generation. While Mr. Peña Nieto has not allowed American law enforcement officials the kind of broad access in Mexico that Mr. Calderón had permitted, the two countries have continued to work together on big cases.
Eduardo Medina Mora, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said that the two governments had been working together on the case for months. But whether Mr. Guzmán would be extradited to the United States has not been worked out.
“I think it’s important that first he faces the charges against him in Mexico,” the ambassador said.
It remains to be seen if the arrest will interrupt Mexico’s thriving drug trade. The capture or killing of a drug lord sometimes unleashes more violence as internal feuds break out and rivals attack. And given the efficiency of the Sinaloa Cartel, it is possible the group will manage a smooth transition to a new leader and continue with business as usual.
“The takedown of Chapo Guzmán is a thorn in the side of the Sinaloa Cartel, but not a dagger in its heart,” said George Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary who studies the drug war.
Over time, as he eluded capture, his legend and the mystery of his whereabouts grew. He had been rumored to be in Guatemala, Argentina, Bolivia, and even, as Mr. Calderón once speculated, in the United States, where his wife had given birth to twins.
But in the end, he was captured not long after doing what so many cartel bosses do: having a party in Mazatlán.
Few details were available on Saturday, but a picture of Mr. Guzmán, who appeared kneeling and handcuffed with a few cuts on his face and shoulders, circulated among law enforcement officials.
In the afternoon, he was paraded before the media at a news conference at Mexico City’s international airport, in dark jeans, a dress shirt and noticeably blacker hair than in previous photographs. Masked Mexican marines gripped him as he was walked to a helicopter that would take him to prison.
The authorities seized an arsenal during his arrest, suggesting the lengths he went to protect himself: 97 large guns, 36 handguns, 2 grenade launchers, a rocket launcher, and 43 vehicles, several of them armored.
Without specifying their location, Mr. Murillo Karam said Mr. Guzmán had seven houses, with reinforced steel doors and connected by tunnels that allowed him time to escape just ahead of the police.
An American law enforcement official said that last week, the D.E.A. assisted Mexican agents in a raid on an upper-class neighborhood of Culiacán, Mexico, the Sinaloa State capital, arrested several security people for Mr. Guzmán and discovered the tunnels, with openings to them in the showers of several homes.
As it became apparent that Mr. Guzmán had been caught, some in Mazatlán, where he had been known to dole out wads of cash to keep his whereabouts secret, expressed concern. At a breakfast gathering for local businessmen, a few attendees got up and left immediately, according to a witness.
“It’s bad news for Mazatlán,” said one of the men at the breakfast. “He was keeping the peace.”
In the years since he escaped prison, Mr. Guzmán took on near-mythic status. He landed on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. He picked up the tab for entire restaurants, or so the stories go, to ensure diners would remain silent about his outings. According to a leaked diplomatic cable, he surrounded himself with an entourage of 300 armed men for protection. And narcocorridos, folk ballads in tribute to drug lords, were sung in his honor.
Although Mr. Guzmán had remained the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, security analysts have long suspected that much of the day-to-day management fell to subordinates still at large.
Still, his fall carried a potent symbolic boost for Mexican security forces.
Mr. Guzmán was born in poverty in the foothills of the Sierra Madre in Sinaloa State and dropped out of school by third grade. His first foray into drug smuggling came in the late 1980s, when, the State Department said, he began working for Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, once Mexico’s biggest cocaine dealer, as an air logistics expert.
Mr. Guzmán exploited the cocaine boom in the United States at the time, making valuable contacts along the transportation chain from Colombia to Arizona.
By the time the Mexican authorities captured Mr. Félix Gallardo in 1989, Mr. Guzmán had begun forming his own cartel.
In 1993, he was charged in the United States with money laundering and racketeering, and three months later, he was arrested and convicted in Mexico on drug and homicide charges and sentenced to 20 years.
As American investigations continued, indictments piled up. One in 1994 said Mr. Guzmán continued operating his organization through a brother while jailed. Then, in January 2001, Mr. Guzmán’s criminal career took a stunning turn with his escape.
Some Mexicans greeted the news of his capture with a shrug as drug violence continues. There is also uncertainty over what to believe about Mr. Guzmán. “He was somebody who existed,” said Gustavo Colin in Mexico City, “and didn’t exist.”
Correction: February 24, 2014
Because of an editing error, an article on Sunday about the capture of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the world’s most-wanted drug kingpin, misidentified, in some copies, the location where he appeared to have been hiding in 2012. It was in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, not Baja, Calif.
Randal C. Archibold reported from Mexico City, and Ginger Thompson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Damien Cave, Paulina Villegas, Karla Zabludovsky and Elisabeth Malkin from Mexico City.
A version of this article appears in print on February 23, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: El Chapo, Most-Wanted Drug Lord, Is Captured. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/world/americas/joaquin-guzman-loera-sinaloa-drug-cartel-leader-is-captured-in-mexico.html?_r=0
**
Cae "El Chapo": funcionario de EU
La agencia The Associated Press indicó que un funcionario estadounidense de alto rango le informó que Guzmán fue capturado con vida en Mazatlán.
AP Y AFP
22/02/2014 10:25 AM (publicado en Milenio)
Washington
El capo del Cártel de Sinaloa del narcotráfico mexicano, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, fue detenido durante la noche en un hotel de Mazatlán, en México, por autoridades mexicanas y de Estados Unidos, se enteró The Associated Press el sábado.
Un funcionario estadounidense de alto rango dijo que Guzmán fue capturado con vida en la ciudad, en la costa del Pacífico. El funcionario, que no estaba autorizado a hablar sobre el arresto, dio la información bajo condición de no ser identificado.
"Hemos estado monitoreándolo activamente durante cinco semanas. Por esta presión, escapó (de Culiacán) en los últimos dos días a Mazatlán", dijo a la AFP un oficial de Seguridad estadunidense a condición de anonimato.
"Un pequeño contingente de personas estaba con él" al momento de la detención, añadió la fuente, que precisó que el detenido será trasladado a Ciudad de México.
Guzmán se enfrenta a múltiples acusaciones federales de narcotráfico en Estados Unidos y está en la lista de los más buscados-de la Departamento Estadunidense Antidrogas (DEA).
Su imperio de la droga se extiende a lo largo de América del Norte, pero llega también a lugares tan lejanos como Europa y Australia.
El Cártel de Sinaloa ha estado muy involucrado en la sangrienta guerra contra las drogas que ha azotado partes de México desde hace varios años.
Desde el pasado día 13, fuerzas de seguridad mexicana iniciaron un fuerte e ininterrumpido operativo en Culiacán, capital de Sinaloa, del que se habían dado escuetos detalles oficiales y que según la prensa tenía como objetivo la captura de "El Chapo" y de su socio Ismael 'Mayo' Zambada, uno de los principales líderes del cártel de Sinaloa.
Fruto del operativo, el viernes fue detenido Jesús Peña González, uno de los jefes de seguridad de 'Mayo' Zambada.
"El Chapo" Guzmán se escapó en 2001 de la prisión de Puente Grande, Jalisco (oeste), considerada de máxima seguridad, escondido en un carro de lavandería.
Además de ser el narcotraficante más buscado por Estados Unidos, es considerado por la revista Forbes como el delincuente más poderoso del mundo.
Por la captura de Guzmán, la fiscalía general mexicana ofrecía una recompensa de 30 millones de pesos (unos 2.3 millones de dólares) mientras que Estados Unidos puso un precio de cinco millones de dólares.
*
La nota original...publicada poco después de las 9 de la mañana
Most-Wanted Drug Lord Is Captured in Mexico
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and GINGER THOMPSON.
FEB. 22, 2014
MEXICO CITY — The world’s most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, has been captured, a senior American law enforcement official said Saturday, ending a 13-year manhunt for the chief supplier of illegal drugs to the United States and much of the world.
Mr. Guzmán, whose nickname means Shorty, had eluded the authorities time and again since he escaped from a prison in a laundry basket just before an extradition order to the United States. He faces a bounty of drug trafficking and other charges stemming from a multibillion-dollar drug empire.
Few details were available on Saturday morning, but a picture of Mr. Guzmán, who appeaered to be handcuffed and with a few cuts to his face and torso, circulated among law enforcement officials. So hidden was he that there was uncertainty what he looked like, but American officials believe they have the right man. Mexican marines captured him in the Pacific beach resort area of Mazatlan. There were no reports of shots fired. In the past year, several of his top associates had been detained and crime analysts who follow the drug world had speculated his days were increasingly numbered.
Mr. Guzmán took on near-mythic status, landing on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people and talked about his legendary exploits. He picked up the tab for entire restaurants, or so the stories go, so diners would remain silent about his outings and, according to a leaked diplomatic cable, he surrounded himself with an entourage of 300 armed men for protection. Narcocorridos, folk ballads in tribute to drug lords, were sung in his honor.
It seemed as if he was always tipped off or managed to slither away just as Mexican forces, often relying on American intelligence, closed in several times in the past few years.
In 2012, it appeared he was hiding in a mansion in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, around the time then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with foreign ministers in the same town. A raid the next day failed to capture him.
While Mr. Guzmán is the most prominent drug lord to fall, the practical effect of his end remained unclear. He was considered the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest and most powerful cartel with tentacles on every continent. Security analysts, however, have long suspected that, as Mexican and American authorities ratcheted up their pursuit, much of the day-to-day management fell to subordinates who remain at large.
Another powerful group, the Zetas, has emerged with brutal violence to battle Mr. Guzmán’s organization, raising questions about whether the focus on dismantling that group gave Mr. Guzmán something of a free pass.
Still, Mr. Guzmán’s fall carried a potent symbolic boost for Mexican security forces, which have killed or captured 25 of the 37 most-wanted organized crime leaders announced in 2010.
Mr. Guzmán boasted a rags-to-riches story that only fed the legend. He was born in poverty in the foothills of the Sierra Madre in northwestern Sinaloa State and dropped out of school by third grade. His first foray into drug smuggling came in the late 1980s, when, according to the State Department, he began working for Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, once Mexico’s biggest cocaine dealer, as an air logistics expert.
Mr. Guzmán astutely exploited the cocaine boom in the United States at the time, making valuable contacts along the transport chain from Barranquilla, in Colombia, to Arizona.
By the time the Mexican authorities captured Mr. Felix Gallardo in 1989, Mr. Guzmán inherited one of his smuggling routes and began forming his own, mushrooming cartel.
He was charged in the United States with money laundering and racketeering in March 1993 and three months later he was arrested and convicted on drug and homicide charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico.
He said he was a farmer and merchant earning approximately $6,000 monthly.
The drug and racketeering indictments piled up. One in 1994 said Mr. Guzmán continued operating his organization through his brother, Arturo Guzmán Loera, while in prison in Mexico, arranging cocaine shipments from South America to the United States. Then, in January 2001, Mr. Guzmán’s criminal career took a stunning turn. He escaped from the maximum-security prison in Guadalajara — the heart of Mr. Felix Gallardo’s cartel operations. According to popular folklore, he was wheeled out in a laundry cart, with assistance from the prison authorities.
His life on the lam gave rise to all manner of rumors about his whereabouts. President Felipe Calderón wondered aloud, in a New York Times interview in fall 2011, after Mr. Guzmán’s latest bride traveled to Los Angeles to give birth to twins, if Mr. Guzmán was actually in the United States. In the past year, the American and Mexican authorities stepped up sanctions to pressure the Guzmán family. Yet, the Sinaloa Cartel has grown steadily since his escape, expanding into marijuana and heroin.
In the end, Mr. Guzmán’s fall, may hardly mean the end of his empire. There simply may be “a redistribution of power,” said Malcolm Beith, a journalist who wrote “The Last Narco,” describing the hunt for Mr. Guzmán.
Correction: February 22, 2014
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly identified where Joaquín Guzmán Loera appeared to be hiding in 2012. It was in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, not Baja, Calif.
Follow
us: @reformacom on Twitter
*
La nota en impresos un día después :
El Chapo, Most-Wanted Drug Lord, Is Captured in Mexico
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and GINGER THOMPSONFEB. 22, 2014
MEXICO CITY — Just before 7 a.m. on Saturday, dozens of soldiers and police officers descended on a condominium tower in Mazatlán, Mexico, a beach resort known as much as a hangout for drug traffickers as for its seafood and surf.
The forces were following yet another tip about the whereabouts of one of the world’s most wanted drug kingpins, Joaquín Guzmán Loera — known as El Chapo, which means “Shorty” — who had eluded such raids for 13 years since escaping from prison, by many accounts in a laundry cart. With an army of guards and lethally enforced loyalty, he reigned over a worldwide, multibillion-dollar drug empire that supplied much of the cocaine and marijuana to the United States despite a widespread, yearslong manhunt by American and Mexican forces.
This time, however, Mr. Guzmán, believed to be in his mid-50s, did not slip out a door, disappear into the famed mountains around his northwest Mexico home, or prove to be absent, as he had in so many previous attempts to apprehend him. He apparently had no time to reach for the arsenal of guns and grenades he had amassed or dash into a storm drain or tunnel, as authorities said he recently did minutes ahead of pursuers.
Mexican marines and the police, aided by information from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, immigration and customs officials and the United States Marshals Service, took him into custody without firing a shot, according to Mexican officials.
Mexico’s attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, said a later forensic exam made it “100 percent” certain the man was Mr. Guzmán; the tests were done to avoid the kind of embarrassment Mexican officials faced in June 2012 when they announced the arrest of Mr. Guzmán’s son, only to later discover it was not him.
Mr. Guzmán faces a slew of drug trafficking and organized crime charges in the United States, which had offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest in the hopes of dealing a crippling blow to an organization that is the country’s top provider of illicit drugs.
Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa Cartel is considered the largest and most powerful trafficking organization in the world, with a reach as far as Europe and Asia, and has been a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico.
“Big strike,” said a Twitter posting by former President Felipe Calderón, who had made cracking down on drug gangs a hallmark of his tenure.
But it was the forces under the control of President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose resolve to fight drug traffickers was questioned, that produced the biggest arrest in a generation. While Mr. Peña Nieto has not allowed American law enforcement officials the kind of broad access in Mexico that Mr. Calderón had permitted, the two countries have continued to work together on big cases.
Eduardo Medina Mora, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said that the two governments had been working together on the case for months. But whether Mr. Guzmán would be extradited to the United States has not been worked out.
“I think it’s important that first he faces the charges against him in Mexico,” the ambassador said.
It remains to be seen if the arrest will interrupt Mexico’s thriving drug trade. The capture or killing of a drug lord sometimes unleashes more violence as internal feuds break out and rivals attack. And given the efficiency of the Sinaloa Cartel, it is possible the group will manage a smooth transition to a new leader and continue with business as usual.
“The takedown of Chapo Guzmán is a thorn in the side of the Sinaloa Cartel, but not a dagger in its heart,” said George Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary who studies the drug war.
Over time, as he eluded capture, his legend and the mystery of his whereabouts grew. He had been rumored to be in Guatemala, Argentina, Bolivia, and even, as Mr. Calderón once speculated, in the United States, where his wife had given birth to twins.
But in the end, he was captured not long after doing what so many cartel bosses do: having a party in Mazatlán.
Few details were available on Saturday, but a picture of Mr. Guzmán, who appeared kneeling and handcuffed with a few cuts on his face and shoulders, circulated among law enforcement officials.
In the afternoon, he was paraded before the media at a news conference at Mexico City’s international airport, in dark jeans, a dress shirt and noticeably blacker hair than in previous photographs. Masked Mexican marines gripped him as he was walked to a helicopter that would take him to prison.
The authorities seized an arsenal during his arrest, suggesting the lengths he went to protect himself: 97 large guns, 36 handguns, 2 grenade launchers, a rocket launcher, and 43 vehicles, several of them armored.
Without specifying their location, Mr. Murillo Karam said Mr. Guzmán had seven houses, with reinforced steel doors and connected by tunnels that allowed him time to escape just ahead of the police.
An American law enforcement official said that last week, the D.E.A. assisted Mexican agents in a raid on an upper-class neighborhood of Culiacán, Mexico, the Sinaloa State capital, arrested several security people for Mr. Guzmán and discovered the tunnels, with openings to them in the showers of several homes.
As it became apparent that Mr. Guzmán had been caught, some in Mazatlán, where he had been known to dole out wads of cash to keep his whereabouts secret, expressed concern. At a breakfast gathering for local businessmen, a few attendees got up and left immediately, according to a witness.
“It’s bad news for Mazatlán,” said one of the men at the breakfast. “He was keeping the peace.”
In the years since he escaped prison, Mr. Guzmán took on near-mythic status. He landed on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. He picked up the tab for entire restaurants, or so the stories go, to ensure diners would remain silent about his outings. According to a leaked diplomatic cable, he surrounded himself with an entourage of 300 armed men for protection. And narcocorridos, folk ballads in tribute to drug lords, were sung in his honor.
Although Mr. Guzmán had remained the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, security analysts have long suspected that much of the day-to-day management fell to subordinates still at large.
Still, his fall carried a potent symbolic boost for Mexican security forces.
Mr. Guzmán was born in poverty in the foothills of the Sierra Madre in Sinaloa State and dropped out of school by third grade. His first foray into drug smuggling came in the late 1980s, when, the State Department said, he began working for Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, once Mexico’s biggest cocaine dealer, as an air logistics expert.
Mr. Guzmán exploited the cocaine boom in the United States at the time, making valuable contacts along the transportation chain from Colombia to Arizona.
By the time the Mexican authorities captured Mr. Félix Gallardo in 1989, Mr. Guzmán had begun forming his own cartel.
In 1993, he was charged in the United States with money laundering and racketeering, and three months later, he was arrested and convicted in Mexico on drug and homicide charges and sentenced to 20 years.
As American investigations continued, indictments piled up. One in 1994 said Mr. Guzmán continued operating his organization through a brother while jailed. Then, in January 2001, Mr. Guzmán’s criminal career took a stunning turn with his escape.
Some Mexicans greeted the news of his capture with a shrug as drug violence continues. There is also uncertainty over what to believe about Mr. Guzmán. “He was somebody who existed,” said Gustavo Colin in Mexico City, “and didn’t exist.”
Correction: February 24, 2014
Because of an editing error, an article on Sunday about the capture of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the world’s most-wanted drug kingpin, misidentified, in some copies, the location where he appeared to have been hiding in 2012. It was in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, not Baja, Calif.
Randal C. Archibold reported from Mexico City, and Ginger Thompson from New York. Reporting was contributed by Damien Cave, Paulina Villegas, Karla Zabludovsky and Elisabeth Malkin from Mexico City.
A version of this article appears in print on February 23, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: El Chapo, Most-Wanted Drug Lord, Is Captured. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/world/americas/joaquin-guzman-loera-sinaloa-drug-cartel-leader-is-captured-in-mexico.html?_r=0
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