A meeting between US actor Sean Penn and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the Mexican jungle helped lead to the drug kingpin’s capture last week, a Mexican official said on Saturday.
US rock magazine Rolling Stone on Saturday uploaded an interview between Penn and Guzman to its Web site, as well as a photograph from Oct. 2 last year showing the Oscar-winning actor shaking hands with the mustachioed Sinaloa drug cartel leader, who is wearing a blue shirt.
Penn writes that the 58-year-old Guzman gave him a “compadre” hug when they met at a Mexican jungle clearing and had a seven-hour sit-down followed by phone and video interviews.
Photo: EPA
“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world,” Guzman told Penn in a stunning admission of his criminal enterprise over sips of tequila.
“I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats,” Guzman said in the meeting, which Mexican actress Kate del Castillo helped to arrange.
A Mexican federal official said that authorities “had knowledge of this meeting” and that it helped lead to last Friday’s recapture of the world’s most wanted man in his northwestern home state of Sinaloa.
Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez on Friday said that Guzman had met with unnamed actors and producers in the hope of making a biopic about himself, which helped locate him.
Rolling Stone also published a video showing Guzman without a mustache, talking about why he decided to go into drug trafficking after the age of 15 because there were “no job opportunities.”
“Unfortunately, where I grew up, there was and there is no other way to survive,” Guzman said.
Asked if he feels responsible for the high level of addictions in the world, he said: “It’s false. The day that I don’t exist, it won’t reduce drug trafficking.”
In a text message exchange days after their meeting, Guzman discusses a marine helicopter raid that almost captured him on Oct. 6. He downplayed injuries to his face and leg reported by the authorities, saying: “Not like they said. I only hurt my leg a little bit.”
Authorities said the marines did not shoot Guzman during the raid because he was accompanied by two women and a girl, but that he hurt himself in a fall.
The Rolling Stone interview emerged after Mexican prosecutors announced that they would seek Guzman’s extradition to the US, a reversal from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s previous refusal to send him across the border.
The attorney general’s office said it received two US extradition requests last year on a slew of charges, including drug trafficking and murder, and that it later obtained arrest warrants to ship him across the border.
“With Guzman Loera’s recapture, the respective extradition proceedings will have to start,” the office said in a statement.
It did not indicate when the hearings would start, and noted that Guzman’s lawyers could seek appeals.
One of Guzman’s attorneys, Juan Pablo Badillo, vowed to take the case up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
“He shouldn’t be extradited because Mexico has a fair constitution,” Badillo told reporters outside the Altiplano prison near Mexico City, where Guzman was sent following his arrest.
It was from that prison that Guzman escaped on July 11, sneaking into a hole in his cell’s shower that led to a 1.5km tunnel outside the prison. A Mexican federal official defended the decision to send Guzman back to Altiplano, saying measures were taken to improve security, including the installation of metal rods under the floor of prison cells.
The world’s most wanted drug baron was arrested after a deadly military raid on a house early on Friday in Los Mochis, a coastal city in Sinaloa.
Five suspects died and one marine was wounded in the raid. Six people were detained in the operation.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of