Mexico Recaptures Drug Cartel Kingpin El Chapo After Humiliating Prison Escape

Drug Cartel Kingpin 'Joaquin El Chapo'

Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto announced the recapture of cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, whose escape in July from a maximum-security prison humiliated the country’s federal government and exposed corruption in the country’s prison system.

“The arrest of today is very important for the government of Mexico. It shows that the public can have confidence in its institutions,” Peña Nieto said in an address to the nation on Friday. “Mexicans can count on a government decided and determined to build a better country.

Peña Nieto offered few details of the capture, which came six months after El Chapo, the head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, slipped out of his cell and into a sophisticated tunnel built with the apparent collusion of prison officers.


It was his second escape from a high-security prison in less than 15 years.

Peña Nieto made no mention of the United States or the role its intelligence agencies may have played in Guzmán’s capture. El Chapo faces at least seven criminal indictments in several US states, on charges including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, money laundering, and drug distribution.

Guzmán presided over one of the world’s most extensive criminal enterprises, trafficking cocaine on almost every continent, and dominating the narcotics trade in the US. He was deemed so influential and wealthy that in 2009 he landed on the Forbes list of billionaires – provoking outrage in the administration of then-president Felipe Calderón.

Guzmán’s capture marks a rare piece of good news for the president, whose popularity has plummeted to depths not seen in two decades amid the fallout from El Chapo’s escape, allegations of corruption in a property deal involving Peña Nieto’s wife, and his aloof response to the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 student teachers.

“Mission accomplished,” Peña Nieto wrote in a tweet that broke the news. “I would like to inform the Mexican people that Joaquín Guzmán Loera has been captured.”

The Mexican navy said in a statement that Guzmán was captured following an early morning shootout after marines, acting on a tip, raided a house in the city of Los Mochis, in Guzmán’s home state.

Five people were killed in the shootout, though only one marine was injured, while weapons, a rocket launcher and bulletproof vehicles were captured.