Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has begun a new phase of his life at the ADX federal maximum-security prison in the US state of Colorado,
Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has begun a new phase of his life at the ADX federal maximum-security prison in the US state of Colorado, the notorious supermax prison nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” where he will spend the rest of his days after being handed a life sentence an 30 years. The life sentence was the minimum Guzmán faced. The additional 30 years were for unlawful uses of firearms. He was also ordered to pay $12.6bn (£10bn) in forfeiture.
Guzman who escaped Mexican prisons in 2001 and 2015 will find it nearly impossible to slip out of the ADX, built in 1994 and located in a remote mountainous desert region of the western US state. Current ADX inmates include convicted “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, the British “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and the Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is awaiting execution. The most dangerous prisoners are allowed out of their small steel and concrete cell for only 90 minutes a day and they must wear shackles on their hands and feet.
Guzman whose moniker “El Chapo” translates as “Shorty” is considered the most influential drug lord since Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, who was killed in a police shootout in 1993. The 62-year-old Guzman who was a former co-leader of Mexico’s feared Sinaloa drug cartel, was convicted in February of smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. He was extradited to the United States in January 2017, and was being held in solitary confinement at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in a windowless cell that was constantly lit.
The trial jurors were anonymous and were escorted to and from the courthouse in Brooklyn by armed marshals after prosecutors argued that Guzmán had a history of intimidating witnesses and even ordering their murders.
In 2009, Guzmán entered Forbes’ list of the world’s richest men at number 701, with an estimated worth of $1bn. He was accused of helping bring hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the US and of conspiring to make and distribute heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana. He was also said to have used hitmen to carry out hundreds of murders, assaults, kidnappings and acts of torture.
Key associates, including one former lieutenant, testified against Guzmán of him having girls as young as 13 years drugged before raping them. Former bodyguard Isaias Valdez Rios said Guzmán beat two people who had joined a rival cartel until they were completely like rag dolls. He then shot them in the head and ordered their bodies be thrown on a fire. In another incident, he had a member of the rival Arellano Felix cartel burned and imprisoned before taking him to a graveyard, shooting him and having him buried alive. Guzmán is also alleged to have had his own cousin killed for lying about being out of town, and ordered a hit on the brother of another cartel leader because he did not shake his hand.
The court heard details of his 2015 escape from Mexico’s maximum-security Altiplano prison. His sons bought a property near the prison and a GPS watch smuggled into the prison gave diggers his exact location. At onepoint Guzmán complained that he could hear the digging from his cell. He escaped by riding a specially adapted small motorcycle through the tunnel. He also used software on his phone to spy on his wife and mistresses, which allowed the FBI to present his text messages in court.
In one set of texts, he recounted to his wife how he had fled a villa during a raid by US and Mexican officials, before asking her to bring him new clothes, shoes and black moustache dye.
