The Hunt for El Chapo. El Chapo escaped from a maximum- security prison and evaded many attempts at capture, often hiding out in the Sierra Madre. Credit Clockwise from top left: Alfredo Estrella / AFP / Getty; Greg Mathieson / Mai / Mai / Time Life Pictures / Getty; Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Getty; Nikolai Golovanoff / Corbis; Artgraphixel / Shutterstock; Natrot / Shutterstock; Us DEA / Reuters; Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg / Getty; BSIP / UIG / Getty; Zimand / Shutterstock (AK- 4. Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP / Getty (handgun)One afternoon last December, an assassin on board a K. L. M. This was not a business trip: the killer, who was thirty- three, liked to travel, and often documented his journeys around Europe on Instagram. He wore designer clothes and a heavy silver ring in the shape of a grimacing skull. His passport was an expensive fake, and he had used it successfully many times. But, moments after he presented his documents to Dutch customs, he was arrested. Drug Enforcement Administration had filed a Red Notice with Interpol. Only after the Dutch authorities had the man in custody did they learn his real identity: Jos. He supervised the armed wing of the Sinaloa. The latest news, breaking news and current news at Mirror.co.uk. Get all the big headlines, pictures, analysis, opinion and video on the stories that matter to you. Arechiga was a narcotraficante of the digital age, bantering with other criminals on Twitter and posting snapshots of himself guzzling Cristal, posing with exotic pets, and fondling a gold- plated AK- 4. Obsessively secretive, he ran his multibillion- dollar drug enterprise from hiding in Sinaloa, the remote western state where he was born, and from which the cartel takes its name. The Sinaloa cartel exports industrial volumes of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamine to America; it is thought to be responsible for as much as half the illegal narcotics that cross the border every year. CBC Digital Archives has an extensive amount of content from Radio and Television, covering a wide range of topics. Shop National Geographic for atlases, books, magazine, DVDs, travel clothing, outdoor gear, photography equipment, gifts and more at National Geographic Store. Infowars.com the home of the #1 Internet News Show in the World. If you are an existing member of The Times and The Sunday Times enjoying the full benefits of thetimes.co.uk, then simply enter your Times+ login details below and press 'Enter. Treasury Department as . Mexican politicians promised to bring him to justice, and the U. S. According to one study, the Sinaloa cartel is now active in more than fifty countries. On several occasions, authorities had come close to catching Guzm. In 2. 00. 4, the Mexican Army descended on a dusty ranch in Sinaloa where he was holed up, but he had advance warning and fled along a rutted mountain track in an all- terrain vehicle. Three years later, Guzm. The Army mobilized several Bell helicopters to crash the party; the troops arrived, guns drawn, to discover that Guzm. American authorities have no jurisdiction to make arrests in Mexico, so whenever D. E. A. In Washington, concerns about the competence of Mexican forces mingled with deeper fears about corruption. A former senior Mexican intelligence official told me that the cartel has ? Cheatbook your source for Cheats, Video game Cheat Codes and Game Hints, Walkthroughs, FAQ, Games Trainer, Games Guides, Secrets, cheatsbook.After a series of near- misses in which Chapo foiled his pursuers by sneaking out of buildings through back doors, officials at the U. S. Embassy in Mexico City took to joking, bitterly, that there is no word in Spanish for . In dozens of narcocorridos, the heraldic Mexican ballads that glorify traffickers, singers portrayed Guzm. Only a few photographs of him circulated publicly. A famous series taken after an arrest in 1. Chapo escaped eight years later, and had been on the run ever since. Because he might have had plastic surgery to alter his appearance, the authorities could no longer be sure what he looked like. One narcocorrido captured the predicament: . Narcotics smuggling necessitates regular phone communication between farmers and packers, truckers and pilots, accountants and enforcers, street dealers and suppliers. But traffickers at the top of the hierarchy maintain operational security by rarely making calls or sending e- mails. Structurally, its network is distributed, and has more in common with a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda than with the antiquated hierarchies of the Cosa Nostra. When the cartel suffers the loss of a major figure like El Chino . At the D. E. A., which taps hundreds of phone lines and e- mail accounts associated with traffickers, the process of applying pressure to a criminal organization and then monitoring furtive attempts at outreach is known as . They learned that Guzm. The marines, who are the Mexican equivalent of Navy SEALs, were joined by a small group of American advisers. Mexican authorities code- named the mission Operation Gargoyle. Its object was to capture Guzm. Fighting drug traffickers in Mexico has become a matter of triage, and the SEMAR unit was soon to be redeployed to battle another cartel, the Knights Templar, in the restive state of Michoac. A battleship anchored off the coast was used as a decoy, so that curious observers might conclude that the sudden influx of commandos was part of a standard naval exercise. But one reason that Guzm. One person involved in the operation told me, . Born in the mountain village of La Tuna, in Mexico. For generations, Sinaloan ranchers had cultivated cannabis and opium, and children were taken out of elementary school to assist in the harvest. But he was clever and aggressive, and quickly began to acquire power. One night in November, 1. Guzm. They severed the telephone lines so that nobody could call for help, then walked inside and opened fire on the dance floor. The targets were Tijuana- based traffickers whom Guzm. They were in the bathroom when the shooting started, and fled without being harmed. The next spring, the traffickers arranged for their own hit men to murder Guzm. As gunfire erupted, Guzm. Seven people were killed, including Archbishop Juan Jes. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison, on charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking, and bribery, and ended up in Puente Grande, in Jalisco, which was considered one of the most secure prisons in Mexico. Behind bars, Guzm. He bought off the prison staff and enjoyed a life of relative luxury: he conducted business by cell phone, orchestrated regular visits from prostitutes, and threw parties for favored inmates that featured alcohol, lobster bisque, and filet mignon. While he was there, the Mexican attorney general. The resulting criminal profile noted that he was . But many in Mexico speculate that he didn. Criminal charges were eventually brought against seventy- one people who worked at the prison, including the warden. If Chapo. He retreated to Sinaloa and expanded his operations, launching violent turf wars with rival cartels over control of prized entry points along the U. S. The sociologist Diego Gambetta, in his 1. Today on the streets of Culiac. Chapo and other drug lords have invested and laundered their proceeds by buying hundreds of legitimate businesses: restaurants, soccer stadiums, day- care centers, ostrich farms. Sinaloa remains poor, however, and Badiraguato, the municipality containing Guzm. There had always been some sympathy for the drug trade in Sinaloa, but nothing deepens sympathy like charity and bribes. Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico. If someone gets sick, you provide a little plane. So you have lots of local support, because you are Santa Claus. And everybody likes Santa Claus. Last year, a former bodyguard for the current governor of Sinaloa, Mario L. In one video, the bodyguard played a recorded conversation in which the Governor appeared to instruct his subordinates not to antagonize the Sinaloa cartel. Last August, the bodyguard was discovered beside a road in Sinaloa. He had been decapitated. As long as Guzm. In 2. Dennis Blair, President Barack Obama. The challenge was taking him into custody. According to a diplomatic cable that was later released by Wiki. Leaks, Galv. The peaks of the Sierra Madre Occidental are steep and jagged, and the roads that vein their contours often taper to a single dirt track. An armored convoy would be spotted by Guzm. And if a Blackhawk helicopter was dispatched to attack his outpost he would hear it thundering across the valley from miles out, leaving plenty of time to flee. More recently, however, intelligence collected by Mexican authorities and the D. E. A. There is a saying in the Mexican drug trade that it is better to live one good year than ten bad ones. Many young men enter the industry expecting to enjoy a decadent life for a short time before being incarcerated or killed. Young narcos behave recklessly: they go to night clubs, they race Bentleys, and they post pictures of themselves online with their co- conspirators (and with the occasional dead body). The only traffickers in Sinaloa who beat the odds are those who are content to follow a more austere life in the mountains. But because he was tired, or married to a much younger woman, or overconfident of his ability to escape, Guzm. From time to time, he would be spotted at an elegant restaurant in Sinaloa or in a neighboring state. The choreography was always the same. Diners would be startled by a team of gunmen, who would politely but firmly demand their telephones, promising that they would be returned at the end of the evening. Chapo and his entourage would come in and feast on shrimp and steak, then thank the other diners for their forbearance, return the telephones, pick up the tab for everyone, and head off into the night. Like many narcos, he was suspicious of satellite phones, because most of the companies that manufacture them are American and the devices are relatively easy for law- enforcement officials to compromise. But the Black. Berry is made by a Canadian company, and Guzm. This trust was misplaced: by early 2. D. E. A. He had been married at least three times, and he had relationships with many mistresses; nevertheless, he appears to have had an unflagging appetite for paid companionship. Over the next three days, the authorities pursued him as he moved around the city, desperately trying to arrange an escape route to the mountains. At one point during the chase, Guzm. He met up with a subordinate and gave him the Black. Berry. Someone involved in the operation said of Guzm. While they were occupied with arresting him, Chapo made it into the desert, where a private plane picked him up and flew him back to the safety of the Sierra Madre.
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