Capture of Mexican Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’ Guzman Ignites Fight Over Trial Location
Photo Credit: Fox News After narrow escapes from the military, law enforcement and rivals over 13 years on the run, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is back in Mexican custody. Now, what is likely to be a lengthy and complicated legal process to decide which country gets to try him first will begin.
In Mexico, Guzman is likely to face a host of charges related to his role as the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the country’s most powerful drug organization and a key player in the yearslong violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 2006.
Grand juries in at least seven U.S. federal district courts have handed up indictments for Guzman on a variety of charges, ranging from smuggling cocaine and heroin into the United States to participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise involving murder and racketeering.
Mexico convicted the man whose nickname translates to “Shorty” on drug trafficking and murder charges in 1993. Guzman had served less than half of his 20-year prison sentence when he escaped from jail in 2001. The Mexican government is almost certain to levy a host of new charges related not only to his escape but also to his role in running the global drug-empire that the Sinaloa Cartel has become.
Calls for his extradition to the United States started just hours after word spread of his arrest Saturday morning at a condominium in Mazatlan, a beach resort town on Mexico’s Pacific Coast.
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