Hunting El Chapo

by Andrew Hogan

  Metal tracks had also been laid the entire length of the tunnel so that an ingenious getaway vehicle—a railcar rigged to the frame of a small modified motorcycle—could be driven rapidly by the escapee. The walls were only about thirty inches apart, jagged and unshored—and barely wide enough for Chapo’s shoulders.

  The tunnel began beneath a ramshackle cinder-block house, still under construction, in the nearby town of Santa Juana. By the time the prison alarm sounded and a massive search began, Chapo Guzmán was once again in the wind.

  THE AUDACITY OF CHAPO’S escape plan—to have his chief tunnelers, most likely Kava and his crew, dig right up under the most secure prison in Mexico—shocked the world. But the method was certainly no mystery to me or anyone else who’d studied Chapo for years. As with Chapo’s breakout from Puente Grande back in 2001, the escape came with that other Guzmán hallmark: layers of corruption and bribery.

  The official Mexican version of events was quickly dismissed as a farce. Reports of loud drilling in concrete had gone unheeded; the supposed blind spot on the video surveillance turned out to be merely a case of prison staff selectively ignoring the activities in his cell.

  In the moments before his escape, Chapo—appearing fidgety and anxious—repeatedly goes over to the shower area to check on activity behind the short wall, and even bends down, apparently to help pry something open. The video also appears to show an iPad lying near Guzmán’s bed, despite the fact that cell phones, tablets, and other electronic devices are specifically banned in the prison.

  According to a review conducted months later by the Mexican Congressional Bicameral Commission on National Security, Chapo had never been treated like a typical inmate at Altiplano. In the seventeen months he spent there, he’d been granted extraordinary privileges, receiving 272 visits from his lawyers alone, as well as 18 family visits and 46 conjugal visits. Perhaps the most sensational of these latter visits was a reported New Year’s Eve rendezvous with a local Sinaloa politician, a young female deputy from the National Action Party named Lucero Sánchez López, who was accused of sneaking into the prison with false documents and spending the night with Guzmán. Sánchez forcefully denied these charges, but was nonetheless stripped of her parliamentary immunity.

  On June 21, 2017, Sánchez was arrested by US federal agents at the Otay Mesa Cross Border Xpress—the bridge connecting Tijuana’s A. L. Rodríguez International Airport with San Diego—and the next day the former legislator was charged in California federal court with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. After the capture, and reviewing information from the line sheets, Brady and I suspected that Sánchez was the same “girlfriend” who Picudo had told us escaped through the tunnel and sewer with Chapo in Culiacán just before we arrived at his safe house.*

  Upon his escape, Guzmán again catapulted back to the status of world’s most wanted fugitive. Interpol issued a “Red Notice” for his immediate arrest. There were sightings of Chapo reported via Twitter, of him supposedly enjoying himself at an outdoor café in Costa Rica. Some rumors were laughably far-fetched: Guzmán was reported to have traveled as far south as Patagonia, Argentina, where witnesses claimed to have seen him in a “sweet shop”—police and military units were on high alert that he was traveling in the Andes, on the verge of crossing the border into Chile.

  In truth, Chapo had never left the comfort zone of his own mountain home.

  FROM THE MOMENT the news broke of Chapo’s escape, an intense manhunt commenced. Admiral Furia and his Mexico City–based SEMAR brigade took the lead once again, using our operational blueprint and years’ worth of intelligence as their guide. SEMAR, working in conjunction with PGR and the Mexican Federal Police, arrested Araña, Chapo’s most trusted pilot, who was suspected of flying the kingpin up to the Sierra Madre of Sinaloa immediately after his escape from Altiplano.

  Guzmán, no doubt feeling more untouchable than ever after the brazen breakout, didn’t even bother switching up his telecommunications system. He may no longer have had Condor to act as his faithful secretary, but Mexican authorities were able to intercept BlackBerry PIN messages of Chapo’s closest associates—just as we had done for months.

  During his time hiding out in the mountains, Kate del Castillo—the star of Guzmán’s favorite telenovela, La Reina del Sur—resurfaced and was communicating with Chapo through various BlackBerry mirror devices. Even as a fugitive, Chapo was still seeking to have his life story told on the big screen—just as he had done with Alex Cifuentes back in October 2013. Chapo was also still clearly infatuated with Kate, so thrilled to meet her that he almost disregarded those who planned to come with her, including actor Sean Penn—Chapo had never even heard of the Hollywood star—but Kate assured him that Penn could facilitate the production of Chapo’s movie.

  Chapo’s narcissism unwittingly led him into a trap—a variation of the Argo-style operation Brady and I had strategized two years earlier. On October 2, 2015, Guzmán agreed to a face-to face meeting with Castillo, Penn, and several others at a secluded location high in the Sierra Madre, along the Sinaloa-Durango border. As reported in the Mexican media, Mexican authorities already had Castillo, Penn, and Chapo’s lawyers under surveillance the entire time. The meeting was reportedly a tequila-fueled dinner and sit-down with Kate’s Hollywood friends to develop his life story. Sean Penn, it turned out, was playing the role of journalist, on assignment from Rolling Stone to write an exclusive article. When it was published later (“El Chapo Speaks”), Guzmán said little of note. The meandering ten-thousand-word, first-person account was widely derided as self-indulgent and naive, and it got particular heat for the arrangement Rolling Stone had agreed to in which Guzmán—or more likely his attorneys—got approval over the final copy.

  According to Castillo, after dinner Guzmán had departed abruptly; he’d said it wasn’t safe for him to stay overnight at the same location as his guests. Several days later, SEMAR conducted helicopter raids in some of the mountain villages outside Tamazula, Durango, but were caught in a hail of gunfire from Chapo’s security men on the ground. Once SEMAR finally made entry into one of the homes near Tamazula, they discovered BlackBerrys, medications, and two-way radios. Once again, Chapo had escaped by mere moments out the back, down a steep hill and into a ravine, and was reported to have injured his face and leg.

  With SEMAR forces closing in from the south, making dozens of raids in the tiny mountainous villages, where Chapo could typically hide without worry, he had no choice but to flee north through Sinaloa.

  His network of safe houses in Culiacán was obviously no longer an option. And with Bravo dead, Chapo drove directly into the hands of the only chief enforcer left on his payroll, the feared Cholo Iván, up in Los Mochis. SEMAR continued to track Chapo the entire time, as he settled in on the Pacific coast, taking refuge in a comfortable safe house constructed on a design similar to the ones in Culiacán.

  IN THE RAIN AND DARKNESS on Friday morning, January 8, 2016, SEMAR launched Operación Cisne Negro (“Black Swan”). Units of masked marines approached in rápidas with their headlights off, military helicopters hovering overhead, surrounding a white two-story house in a middle-class neighborhood of Los Mochis, where they’d confirmed that Chapo and Cholo Iván were hiding.

  Around 4:30 a.m., SEMAR began their entry into the house through the front door and were met by immediate gunfire. The marines advanced slowly while tossing grenades and laying down heavy fire from their assault rifles. After more than twenty minutes of fighting, five of Chapo’s gunmen lay dead, six were injured, and several would be arrested. Only one marine was wounded in the firefight.

  But with the time it had taken SEMAR to gain access to the safe house, Chapo and Cholo Iván were long gone. A search of the house revealed two tunnels: one beneath the refrigerator, the other in a bedroom closet. A switch near a lightbulb activated a trapdoor behind the mirror, opening to an escape ladder and a passageway directly into the sewers of Los Mochis. It was Chapo’s signature MO.

  Once
Chapo and Cholo Iván had reached the sewer—only one meter high, flooded due to the heavy overnight rains—they had to crawl slowly for blocks on their bellies through fetid water and human waste.

  Less than an hour later, Chapo and Cholo Iván emerged from the sewer. The two fugitives forced open a square metal manhole but had trouble lifting the hinged cover, so they wedged in one of their shoes to prop it open. In the sewer, they left behind an AR-15 equipped with a grenade launcher.

  Chapo’s luck was running out. According to media reports, Chapo and Cholo Iván brandished their guns and carjacked a white Volkswagen Jetta after they emerged from the manhole in the street. But amazingly, the Jetta quickly broke down, and after driving only a few blocks, Chapo and Cholo Iván ditched the Volkswagen. At a traffic light, they carjacked a red Ford Focus, reportedly driven by a woman with her daughter and five-year-old grandson.

  Six miles before they reached the town of Che Ríos, the Ford Focus was stopped by Federal Police. Cholo Iván exited the vehicle armed with a weapon, while Chapo was crouched in the backseat.

  The media also reported that Chapo offered to reward the police with homes and businesses in Mexico and the United States and promised them to “forget about working for the rest of their lives.” All they had to do was let him go. The cops refused the bribes and put Chapo and Cholo Iván into a patrol car.

  The cops also snapped a photo and sent it to their superiors. It showed Chapo sitting in the back of the cop car, wearing a filthy tank top, next to shirtless, grim-faced Cholo Iván.

  Authorities feared the arrival of more gunmen. To avoid a shoot-out, they drove Chapo and Cholo Iván to Hotel Doux, just outside Los Mochis, where they holed up in Room 51 until additional Federal Police and SEMAR arrived.

  Chapo and Cholo Iván were then flown to Mexico City; Guzmán found himself back in Altiplano, the same maximum-security prison he’d tunneled out of the previous summer. Chapo’s six months on the run—six months of embarrassment for the government of Mexico—had finally come to an end.

  “Mission accomplished,” President Enrique Peña Nieto announced on his Twitter account. “We’ve got him.”

  HOW COULD MEXICO POSSIBLY ensure that Chapo wouldn’t attempt yet another escape from custody? Prison officials announced that security at Altiplano had been revamped for Guzmán’s arrival. They cited the installation of hundreds of new surveillance cameras, motion sensors in air ducts and underground, and reinforced steel concrete floors. They also deployed dogs trained specifically to detect Chapo’s distinct odor and would constantly move him between cells, followed closely by a team of guards.

  Then, in the early-morning hours of Friday May 6, 2016, Chapo was transferred, without warning, to a prison outside Ciudad Juárez, reportedly due to its proximity to the border and to facilitate a rapid extradition to the United States. Chapo soon was complaining about the inhumane and unbearable conditions; his Juárez prison cell was so filthy that he’d asked for bleach to clean it himself. According to his lawyers and the report of the psychiatrist who visited him, the kingpin was badly deteriorating: he was “depressed and suffering hallucinations and memory loss because of harsh conditions in the prison where he is jailed.”

  Chapo told the doctor that “psychological torture” was being inflicted on him. Lights in his cell were kept on twenty-four hours a day, and his only human contact was with masked corrections officers. He also reported that he was being woken up every four hours to appear on camera for an inmate roll call. “They do not let me sleep,” Chapo said, according to the psychiatrist’s report. “Everything has become hell.” Guzmán claimed to be taking a cocktail of thirteen pills daily—for pain, insomnia, and constipation. His sleep deprivation and hallucinations were so severe that he felt he was on the verge of death. “They have not beaten me,” Chapo said. “But I would prefer that.”

  On October 24, 2016, Emma Coronel filed an official grievance with the National Human Rights Commission, alleging that the new prison conditions were inflicting “irreparable” psychological damage on her husband. She claimed that being confined in the Juárez prison would either kill Chapo or make him “go crazy” in a matter of months. She also complained that her conjugal visits with her husband had been reduced from four hours a week to only two hours.

  Mexican officials denied that Guzmán’s rights were being violated—he was being treated as a high-profile prisoner who’d made two previous prison escapes—and suggested that the reports of mistreatment were merely a legal strategy on the part of the cagey drug lord.

  AND WHAT OF CHAPO’S status as arguably the most powerful narcotrafficker of all time? The truth was, Chapo’s hold on his sprawling narcotics operations back in Sinaloa was beginning to crumble.

  His most trusted sons—Iván, Alfredo, Güero, and Ratón—remained at large, but they did not command a modicum of the respect accorded their father. Many integral members of his inner circle were either dead—like Bravo—or in custody, like Condor, Cholo Iván, Picudo, and Araña.*

  Even Chapo’s mother was no longer seen as untouchable. In mid-June 2016, it was reported that some 150 gunmen stormed into Guzmán’s hometown of La Tuna, killing three people in the community and even looting Chapo’s mother’s home, stealing several vehicles. Eighty-six-year-old Consuelo Loera de Guzmán wasn’t harmed, but the ransacking of her son’s childhood home, the mountain hacienda at which Chapo had often taken refuge, was viewed as incontrovertible proof throughout the narco world that Guzmán no longer had power over his cartel.

  Chapo was facing numerous legal cases in Mexico, primarily for drug trafficking and murder, but the government indicated they no longer had interest in prosecuting him at home; in early 2016, President Peña Nieto announced that he’d directed his attorney general’s office to “make the extradition of this highly dangerous criminal happen as soon as possible.”

  Guzmán faced US federal prosecution for alleged involvement in cocaine, marijuana, and heroin trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder. Jurisdictions in Arizona, California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida, and New Hampshire all staked claims to prosecute him on various offenses related to his status as boss of the Sinaloa Cartel.

  Most legal experts agreed that, once extradited, Chapo would likely be sent to the Eastern District of New York—the Brooklyn venue where infamous Mafia bosses like John Gotti stood trial in the 1980s and ’90s.

  Loretta Lynch, then US attorney for the Eastern District—later United States attorney general—had personally signed the indictment, filed on September 25, 2014, charging Guzmán and other alleged members of his cartel with conspiring to import tonnage of cocaine into the United States between 1990 and 2005.

  The indictments allege that Guzmán employed sicarios to carry out hundreds of acts of violence in Mexico, including murder, torture, and kidnapping. Lynch called Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel “the largest drug trafficking organization in the world,” responsible for the vast majority of drugs imported into the United States.

  YET, GIVEN CHAPO’S REPUTATION as the king of modern-day escape artists, it was perhaps inevitable that in July 2016, Internet rumors claimed that Guzmán had escaped from the lockup in Ciudad Juárez.

  The response of the Mexican government was instantaneous: Secretary of the Interior Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong released a photo on his Twitter account showing Chapo sitting alone in the brightly lit and desolate prison room, clean-shaven, surrounded by only a few hidden, shadowy guards, waiting out the clock before his extradition to face justice in the United States. “Para los rumores, una imagen,” Osorio Chong wrote. “For the rumors, an image . . .”

  IT SEEMED AS IF Chapo’s legal team would drag out the judicial process for many months, but then, on January 19, 2017—and without warning—the Mexican Foreign Ministry and the US Department of Justice abruptly announced that Guzmán was being extradited.

  Chapo was transferred from the prison handcuffed and still in his gray jailhouse jumpsui
t, wearing an oversize tan jacket, his face pale and his hair so closely cropped that he looked like a skinhead. Chapo was clearly agitated and frightened as he sat aboard the Mexican government’s Challenger 605 jet, which departed for New York just after 5:30 p.m. Several hours later, the plane landed at MacArthur Airport, in Islip, Long Island; Chapo was taken into US custody and escorted off the plane by agents from the DEA and HSI.

  The timing of the extradition seemed highly unusual, and the government of Peña Nieto offered no explanation for why it chose to send its most notorious prisoner to the United States on the last night of President Obama’s term in office.

  From Long Island, Guzmán was taken to his new temporary home in the heart of lower Manhattan, the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a blocky beige twelve-story complex wedged between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge on Park Row. One of the country’s most secure federal lockups, this is the prison where other high-profile inmates have awaited their trials, among them the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti and terror suspects such as the Al Qaeda associates of Osama bin Laden and Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

  Guzmán was housed in the most high-security wing within the MCC—10 South—known as “Little Gitmo.”

  On January 20—while most of the world watched President Trump’s inauguration in Washington—Guzmán was brought before a judge in the Eastern District, in downtown Brooklyn, where he heard the seventeen-count indictment, alleging that between 1989 and 2014, as the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, he’d run a “criminal enterprise responsible for importing into the United States and distributing massive amounts of illegal narcotics and for conspiring to murder people who posed a threat to the narcotics enterprise.” The United States government demanded that Chapo surrender $14 billion “in drug proceeds and illicit profits” that he allegedly smuggled into Mexico from the United States.