Notorious drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán convicted

NEW YORK (AP):

Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, was convicted yesterday of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation after a three-month trial packed with Hollywood-style tales of grisly killings, political pay-offs, cocaine hidden in jalapeño cans, jewel-encrusted guns and a naked escape with his mistress through a tunnel.

Guzmán listened to a drumbeat of guilty verdicts on drug and conspiracy charges that could put the 61-year-old escape artist behind bars for decades in a maximum-security US prison selected to thwart another one of the breakouts that made him a folk hero in his native country.

A jury, whose members’ identities were kept secret as a security measure, reached a verdict after deliberating six days in the expansive case. They sorted through what authorities called an “avalanche” of evidence gathered since the late 1980s that Guzmán and his murderous Sinaloa drug cartel made billions in profits by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the US.

GUZMáN’S REACTION

As the judge read the verdict, Guzmán stared at the jury, and his wife watched the scene, both with resignation in their faces. When the jurors were discharged and Guzmán stood to leave the courtroom, the couple traded thumbs-ups.

US District Judge Brian Cogan lauded the jury’s meticulous attention to detail and the “remarkable” approach it took towards deliberations. Cogan said it made him “very proud to be an American”.

Evidence showed drugs poured into the US through secret tunnels or hidden in tanker trucks, concealed in the undercarriage of passenger cars, and packed in rail cars passing through legitimate points of entry – suggesting that a border wall wouldn’t be much of a worry.