- Title: Mexico government approves extradition of drug boss 'El Chapo' Guzman to U.S.
- Date: 20th May 2016
- Summary: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (FILE - JANUARY 8, 2016) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF MEXICAN TROOPS ESCORTING GUZMAN FROM VEHICLE TO HELICOPTER AFTER HE WAS RECAPTURED, TO BE TAKEN TO PRISON LOS MOCHIS, MEXICO (FILE - JANUARY 11, 1016) (REUTERS) STAIRS INSIDE OF GUZMAN'S SAFEHOUSE LEADING TO DRAINS AND TUNNELS WHERE HE TRIED TO FLED VARIOUS OF WATER-FILLED DRAINS AND TUNNELS THAT GUZMAN USED AS HE WAS FLEEING FROM AUTHORITIES
- Embargoed: 4th June 2016 19:57
- Keywords: El Chapo Joaquin El Chapo Guzman druglord Sinaloa Cartel
- Location: MEXICO CITY / ALMOLOYA DE JUAREZ / SALINA CRUZ, OAXACA / SINALOA / TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION
- City: MEXICO CITY / ALMOLOYA DE JUAREZ / SALINA CRUZ, OAXACA / SINALOA / TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO / UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Crime
- Reuters ID: LVA0094IMQZIF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
Mexico's Foreign Ministry said on Friday (May 20) it had approved the extradition of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States, and had received guarantees that the death penalty would not be sought against him.
It is unclear when Guzman will now be removed, but the ministry said he would face charges in U.S. federal courts in Texas and California.
"El Chapo," as he is known, was the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel and one of the world's most wanted drug kingpins until his capture in January, six months after he broke out of a high-security jail in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel.
The Mexican government's struggle with drug cartels and its chief adversary, Guzman, has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
In a July 2015 prison breakout, Guzman humiliated Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto by scrambling through a hole in his cell's shower and fleeing via a lit, ventilated tunnel that led to a small warehouse built on farmland about a mile away from the maximum-security facility.
From there, he disappeared into the night.
In 2001, Guzman staged his first breakout from prison, bribing guards in a jail in western Mexico, then proceeded to dominate smuggling along much of the Rio Grande.
But many in towns and villages across Mexico will remember Guzman better for his squads of assassins who committed thousands of murders, kidnappings and decapitations.
Violence crept up in the 2000-2006 rule of president Vicente Fox, and his National Action Party (PAN) successor Felipe Calderon, staked his reputation on bringing the cartels to heel.
Instead, the killings spiralled, claiming nearly 70,000 lives under Calderon while Guzman's fame grew and Forbes featured him on its annual list of billionaires. In February 2013, Chicago dubbed him its first Public Enemy No.1 since Al Capone.
Guzman's Sinaloa cartel went on smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana, and crystal meth across Mexico's 2,000 mile border with the United States. Indictments allege Guzman's narcotics were sold from New England all the way to the Pacific.
Guzman's capture in February 2014 was a big victory for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which returned to power in December 2012. That made his escape in 2015 all the more embarrassing for Pena Nieto.
The 5 foot 6 inch gangster's exploits made him a legend in many impoverished communities of northern Mexico, where he was immortalized in dozens of ballads and low budget movies.
"He was captured in Guatemala, in 1993 in June and since then the legend began. When he escaped from Puente Grande (maximum security prison), that myth grew to improbable levels. They recaptured him and that myth rose, now he has escaped again, there is no one who can reach him as a legend. He is a guy, who is not only admired by youngsters but a man who managed to outwit all authorities and all controls," said the author on a book about Guzman, Jose Reveles.
Drug agents concede Guzman was exceptional at what he did, managing to outmanoeuvre, outfight or out-bribe his rivals to stay at the top of the bloody Mexican drug trade for over a decade.
Mexican soldiers and U.S. agents came close to Guzman on several occasions but his layers of body guards and spies always tipped him off before they stormed his safe houses.
Guzman was born in La Tuna, a village in the Sierra Madre mountains in Sinaloa state where smugglers have been growing opium and marijuana since the early twentieth century.
He ascended in the 1980s under the tutelage of Sinaloan kingpin Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, alias "The Boss of Bosses," who pioneered cocaine smuggling routes into the United States.
Between 2004 and 2013, his gangs fought in all major Mexican cities on the U.S. border, turning Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo into some of the most dangerous places on the planet.
Guzman's Sinaloa cartel often clashed with the Zetas, a gang founded by former Mexican soldiers that created paramilitary death squads. The Sinaloans fought fire with fire, arming their troops with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.
United States officials sought his extradition only weeks before his escape, the Mexican government later revealed.
Security Expert, Alberto Islas, said Guzman's extradition would've stopped him from continuing to operate his cartel and avoid an escape.
"I do not know what the added value was of holding him prisoner here in Mexico, perhaps a matter of national sovereignty but above all a matter of cooperation. If they (government) had extradited him to the United States, they would've achieved two objectives, to solve complaints expressed by U.S. (security) agencies: One to really cut him off from continuing to operate the cartel, which he continued to operate as we have seen and two, to avoid running the risk of him escaping," said Islas.
Guards continued to heavily patrol the prison from which Guzman escaped in July 2015.
Video footage released by authorities showed that his cell held a cot and a bathroom with a washbasin and, behind a partition wall, his shower where the mouth of the tunnel led.
The partition wall blocked the camera's view of a roughly 50-cm (20 inch) by 50-cm entrance hole to the mile-long tunnel which authorities said El Chapo used to escape.
This building houses the tunnel used by Guzman, to escape.
Reuters television toured the fugitive drug lord's escape tunnel, revealing a complex, well-hidden route that was air conditioned and allowed enough room for a quick exit.
During the escape, Guzman reportedly disposed of a bracelet that only he and a few other high-risk inmates had to wear, and smashed bulbs lighting up the tunnel as he fled, authorities have said.
Authorities said this motorcycle helped him escape.
Forbes put his wealth at $1 billion though investigators say it is impossible to know exactly how much he really made. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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