El Chapo

Joaquín Guzmán Loera (born April 4, 1957) nicknamed "El Chapo" (Spanish: "Shorty") is a Mexican drug lord who heads an international drug trafficking organization referred to as the Sinaloa Cartel, named after the Mexican pacific coast state of Sinaloa where it was initially formed. He became Mexico's top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel.

During the 1980s, Guzmán was associated with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (known as El Padrino, or The Godfather), head of the dominant drug trafficking group in Mexico at that time. After Félix Gallardo's capture, Guzmán took control of the organization and soon gained notoriety as director of the Sinaloa Cartel. Guzmán is wanted by the governments of Mexico, U.S.A. and by the INTERPOL; so far he has evaded operations to capture him.

In 2008, Joaquín Guzmán was listed at 701 on Forbes' list of richest people in the world with an estimated net worth of $1 billion.

In November 2009, Joaquín Guzmán was ranked as the 41st of 67 most powerful people in the world by Forbes.

Guzmán became involved in drug trafficking in the late 1980s as a trafficker and air logistics expert for the once powerful Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. However, during the early 2000s improvements in illegal flights detection prompted Guzman to diversify transportation methods and routes. Guzmán is well known for his use of sophisticated tunnels to smuggle cocaine from Mexico into the United States in the early 1990s. In 1993 a 7.3 ton shipment of his cocaine, concealed in cans of chile peppers and destined for the United States, was seized in Tecate, Baja California.

The Guzman-Loera Organization smuggles multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia through Mexico to the United States. The organization uses both air and maritime means to transport these shipments. He has contacts with Colombian sources of supply in Colombia, as well as major Colombian traffickers based in Mexico. He has bases of operation in Sinaloa, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Mexico. The organization has distribution cells throughout the United States, including cells in Arizona, California, Texas, Chicago, and New York. The organization has also been involved in the production, transshipment, storage, and distribution of marijuana and heroin. The Guzman-Loera organization relies on bulk currency shipments to move drug proceeds across the United States-Mexico border.

In May 1993, members of the rival Tijuana Cartel coordinated a failed attempt to assassinate Guzmán in the Jalisco airport, which resulted in the much publicized murder of the prominent Roman Catholic Cardinal Jesús Posadas. Police believe that Tijuana Cartel gunmen thought Guzmán Loera was in the car, and the Cardinal was shot instead. What is unclear to many is the relationship the Catholic Church has with drug cartels in Mexico. In many small towns of Mexico, it is widely known that drug king pins give large donations to the Catholic Church. With these donations, new chapels, and churches are built.

Guzmán was captured in Guatemala on June 9, 1993, and sentenced to 20 years in prison under crimes against health, criminal association and bribery charges and was jailed in maximum security La Palma (now Altiplano) prison. On November 22, 1995, he was transferred to maximum security Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, Mexico, and was scheduled to be extradited to the U.S.A. The police say Guzmán carefully masterminded his escape plan, wielding influence over almost everyone in the prison, including the facility's director. He allegedly had the prison guards on his payroll, smuggled contraband into the prison and received preferential treatment from the staff.[10] A few days before he was due to be extradited to the United States, Guzmán bribed several guards and on January 19, 2001, he escaped, apparently hidden inside a laundry van; according to officials, seventy-eight people have been implicated in his escape plan.

In November 2004, 300 paratroopers swooped on Guzmán's Sierra Madre stronghold; his voice had been heard on a tapped phone line half an hour earlier. However, Guzmán eluded capture. On December 20, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced a US $5,000,000 reward for information leading to Guzmán's arrest and prosecution.

On March 17, 2007, Mexican federal agents seized USD $205.6 million, and $157,500 pesos in a mansion in Mexico City belonging to Joaquin Guzman.

In March 2008, the Guatemalan government reported that Guzmán's organization may have been tied to a gun battle in their country that left ten gunmen dead. Three days later, the Honduran government reported that they were investigating whether he was hiding out in Honduras franco paz.

On April 18, 2009 in the state of Durango -Roman Catholic Archbishop Héctor Gonzalez- announced that the fugitive drug trafficker was "living nearby and everyone knows it except the authorities, who just don't happen to see him for some reason." A few days afterwards, two military officers were found dead near a bullet-riddled car in the same area the archbishop claimed 'El Chapo' lived in. It is believed that the officers, who were dressed in civilian clothes, were working undercover in the area when they were abducted and executed in the remote village of Cienega de Escobar of the municipality of Tepehuanes in the state of Durango. They were found with their hands tied and their eyes covered with tape. They had been shot a number of times by AK-47 rounds. A message was left near them: “You'll never get El Chapo, not the priests, not the government."

Guzmán is a nephew of the late Pedro Aviles Perez, a founding father of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzmán indoctrinated his sons in the drug trade as well. On February 15, 2005, Guzmán's son, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, was arrested in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. He was sentenced to 5 years in a federal prison, but was released in April 2008 after a Mexican federal judge declared the case was lacking evidence. In June 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrested his brother, two nephews and a niece. They also seized nine houses and six vehicles. They failed, however, to capture Guzmán. Greggory Johnson was the undercover police officer behind all the captures of Guzmans family. Some of the arrests took place in the U.S. in areas such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Oakland CA. One niece was captured in Lodi, CA.

Guzmán reportedly strolled into a restaurant called "Las Palmas" in Nuevo Laredo, with a fleet of bodyguards. After taking his seat, his men collected the cell phones of approximately thirty diners and instructed them to not be alarmed. "The gangsters then ate their meal and left - paying for everyone else in the restaurant".

In November 2007, Guzmán was married to an 18 year-old in Canelas, Durango, Mexico. That same month, Guzmán was reportedly seen in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico, repeating the restaurant appearance he had in Nuevo Laredo.

The arrest of Guzmán's partner, Alfredo Beltrán Leyva (a.k.a.: El Mochomo) in January 20, 2008 and J.R marked a rift with the Beltrán Leyva brothers, as they blamed their boss Joaquin "Chapo" Guzmán for their brother's arrest and ordered the assassination of Guzmán's son, 22 year-old Édgar Guzmán Moreno, which was carried out in a shopping center parking lot on the north side of Culiacán by at least 15 gunmen using assault rifles and grenade launchers.