Mexican President Says Drug Kingpin “El Chapo” Guzman Caught By Authorities

The leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel had escaped from maximum security prisons twice in his long career

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said Friday that authorities had recaptured Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel whose two escapes from maximum security prisons had baffled the world.
“Mission accomplished: We have him,” Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter.
Guzmán was arrested by elite Marine infantry units, a source in the office of the Mexican Attorney General told BuzzFeed News.

Earlier on Friday, the Mexican Navy issued a statement detailing a pre-dawn raid in Los Mochis, a small city in Sinaloa state. Five people, none of them law enforcement officers, were killed during the raid, which the Navys said was based on a tip. Six people were arrested, but they were not identified.

The most wanted drug lord in the world, Guzmán became a source of embarrassment for Peña Nieto’s government after he escaped from prison in July 2015 by riding a motorcycle through a mile-long tunnel that his cronies had dug under his cell. He had previously escaped from another facility in 2001.

Guzmán’s two escapes made him a symbol of the violence and corruption that have seized Mexico since the beginning of the so-called drug war several decades ago. Based in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa,

Guzmán’s organization remains one of the most powerful and feared drug-trafficking syndicates in the world. The cartel’s gunmen are believed to have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of rival traffickers, law-enforcement officers, and innocent civilians.

Yet many in Mexico also saw Guzmán as a kind of folk hero. His largesse with some local populations lent the kingpin the aura of a Robin Hood or a Pancho Villa — a kindly bandit from a poor peasant family who, unlike corrupt politicians, had the best interest of the people at heart.

In the past, the United States had sought to extradite Guzmán, who faces drug-related charges in several American jurisdictions. But the Mexican authorities insisted on having the kingpin serve his full sentence in a Mexican prison before being sent to the United States. President Peña Nieto, in particular, saw keeping the kingpin in Mexico as a matter of national pride, telling reporters that it would be “unforgivable” if he ever escaped again.

After his latest escape, however, the Mexican authorities signaled that they would allow the kingpin’s extradition.