Just as in the fall of Colombian cocaine king Pablo Escobar in 1993, the fatal error that gave away Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán may have been using his telephone.
Mexican and US agents had been combing the northern city of Culiacán, capital of the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa, last week, discovering tunnels beneath bath fittings and arresting key henchmen.
A week ago, they nearly hit pay dirt – reportedly tracing Guzmán speaking on a satellite phone from his hiding place in a tunnel in Culiacán, asking aides for help to escape the city. Agents closed in, but, as with so many near misses in the past, by the time they arrived, he had vanished.
They finally got “Shorty” – Guzmán’s nickname – in a pre-dawn raid of a nondescript middle-class condominium in the seaside resort of Mazatlán.
Mexican marines forced the door to the apartment, which was strewn with clothes, surprising the sleeping drug lord.
Eric Holder, the US attorney general, praised the “professionalism and courage” of the Mexican authorities, and said: “We are pleased that we were able to work effectively with Mexico through the cooperative relationship that US law enforcement agencies have with their Mexican counterparts. We look forward to ongoing cooperation, and future successes.”
Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel trafficked cocaine, marijuana, heroin and metamphetamines, and he is credited with supplying half of the illegal drugs shipped into the US and running an operation that reached as far as Europe and Australia.
The cartel’s power was such that it was able to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through the international bank HSBC.
The extent of the US role in the months-long operation, which, like last year’s capture of Zeta cartel boss Miguel Angel Treviño Morales was conducted by the Mexican marines, remains unclear, but the US Drug Enforcement Administration was believed to have provided technical assistance and satellite telephone-tracking support.
The net had almost closed around Guzmán many times before - once, agents even found his still-hot cup of coffee. Jesús Murillo Karam, Mexico’s attorney general, said he could have been caught on several occasions in recent days, but officials wanted to “wait for the right time” when there was no risk of civilian casualties.
El Chapo’s ability to evade capture imbued him with an almost mythical status second only to his reputation for brutality.
Described by a Anabel Hernández in her book Narcoland as a semi-literate peasant who became “a great drug baron, the king of betrayal and bribery and the boss of top federal police commanders”, El Chapo liked flash cars, big houses, women and living large, and had a vast security detail to help him cover his tracks during his last 13 years on the run after breaking out of jail in 2001.
Many accounts say he was smuggled out in a laundry cart, though Ms Hernández claims he walked free disguised as a policeman with the help of corrupt officials.
Guzmán could now face extradition to the US. A slew of tweets suggested he had “better call Saul” – a reference to the nifty lawyer in cult TV series Breaking Bad with a track record in getting drug bosses out of tight corners.
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