E3: El Chapo Guzman

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera is the main head of the Sinaloa Cartel. The Sinaloa Cartel is named after the Mexican Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. Joaquin Guzman is better known as “El Chapo Guzmán” (The Shorty Guzmán) for his 5 ft 6 in stature. El Chapo became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel, and until his February 2014 arrest, the United States Department of the Treasury considered him the “most powerful drug trafficker in the world”.

El Chapo has been ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the most powerful people in the world every year since 2009. He was named as the 10th richest man in Mexico in 2011, with a net worth of roughly $1 billion US dollars. Forbes magazine and many people also calls him the “biggest drug lord of all time.” The DEA believes he has passed the influence and reaches of the famous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and now considers him “the godfather of the drug world.” In 2013, the Chicago Crime Commission named El Chapo “Public Enemy Number One” due to the influence of his criminal network in Chicago, though there is no evidence that El Chapo has ever been in that city. The last person to receive such notoriety was Al Capone in 1930.

El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel smuggles multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia through Mexico to the United States, the world’s top consumer. Business people have admired the way the Sinaloa Carte works like a well-built franchise. The Cartels organization has also been involved in the production, smuggling and distribution of Mexican methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin across both North American and European markets. At the time of his 2014 arrest, El Chapo had imported more drugs into the United States than anyone else.

El Chapo was captured back in 1993 in Guatemala extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico for murder and drug trafficking. El Chapo still controlled most of his business in prison. The rumors have said that he was living the life inside prison, with prostitution going on and he received any kind of food, drugs, and power he wanted. After bribing prisons guards, he was able to escape from a federal maximum-security prison in 2001. The governments of Mexico, the United States, wanted him. The U.S. offered a $5 million US dollar reward for information leading to his capture, and the Mexican government offered a reward of 30 million pesos for information on El Chapo.

Mexican authorities in Mexico arrested El Chapo again on February 22, 2014. He was found inside his 4th floor condo in the beachfront Miramar condominium in Mazatlan, Sinaloa and was captured without any problems. After El Chapo was captured there was a huge protest going around all over Mexico. People wanted him free because he was the Mexican Robin Hood. El Chapo would help millions of poor people in Mexico. Many people pictured Chapo being rude and mean but he actually has a heart and loves to help people