Mexican convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been moved to a prison close to the border with the US.
He was taken to a prison near Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso in Texas, as part of a normal rotation of prisoners for security reasons, officials said.
The head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, El Chapo Guzman, also known as Shorty, was re-captured in January, six months after he escaped from prison.
Joaquin Guzman is wanted in the US on charges of smuggling drugs into the country.
Photo AP
His transfer to Ciudad Juarez was not a precursor to extradition, Mexican officials told Reuters.
According to Mexico’s National Security Commission, the move was in line with security protocols, and it had rotated more than 7,400 inmates as part of new security strategy.
The authorities said that El Chapo Guzman was moved to a new prison “because of works taking place to reinforce security” in Altiplano – his old prison near Mexico City.
Analysts suggested the move was to prevent him escaping during the works.
El Chapo Guzman, who was named Public Enemy Number One by the Chicago Crime Commission in 2013, has been indicted by at least seven US federal district courts.
According to Mexican officials, the process to extradite him to the US could take at least a year.
In March, El Chapo Guzman asked to be extradited rapidly so he could receive better treatment in prison.
His lawyer said El Chapo Guzman had asked him to stop fighting his extradition because guards at his prison would not let him sleep.
El Chapo Guzman was captured in January and returned to the Altiplano maximum security jail near Mexico City after six months on the run.
He had escaped from Altiplano in July through a one mile-long tunnel under the floor of his shower stall in his cell.
Leaked security footage of El Chapo Guzman’s prison break showed how guards failed to detect his escape until more than 20 minutes after it had happened, despite the sound of loud banging coming from his cell.
Mexican marines arrested him in the western state of Sinaloa after he fled a safe house through a storm drain.
Altiplano director and a number of guards were arrested in connection with El Chapo Guzman’s escape.
Mexican businessman Manuel Trillo, who is accused of financing the jailbreak of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman drug lord, has been sent to prison pending trial.
Prosecutors think Manuel Trillo helped Shorty Guzman break out of the Altiplano jail in July.
Now Manuel Trillo has been sent to that very same prison.
A manhunt is under way to catch El Chapo Guzman, who leads the Sinaloa drug cartel, since he escaped through a one mile-long tunnel on July 11.
According to investigators, Manuel Trillo is the financial operator of the Sinaloa cartel and bankrolled El Chapo Guzman’s escape.
He is also accused of using illicit funds to purchase properties from 2012 to 2015 under false names.
More than 30 people have been arrested in connection with Joaquin Guzman’s escape, including the prison governor and several guards.
El Chapo Guzman’s arrest in February 2014 was seen as a coup for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
The cartel leader had been on the run for 13 years since escaping from another maximum security jail in 2001, reportedly hidden inside a laundry cart.
However, El Chapo Guzman’s spectacular break-out from the Altiplano prison caused huge embarrassment.
Video footage showed how guards failed to detect his escape until more than 20 minutes had passed.
Questions have also been raised how the prison authorities could have failed to notice the construction of the tunnel leading directly into El Chapo Guzman’s cell.
On CCTV footage leaked to the media, the sound of drilling can be heard reverberating through his cell.
Investigators say El Chapo Guzman’s associates must have been planning the jailbreak since shortly after his arrest.
Not only would the construction of the tunnel have taken time, but his associates also purchased a plot of land outside the jail and built a house to disguise the tunnel’s exit.
Attempts to recapture El Chapo Guzman have so far failed although authorities said he was injured when he narrowly escaped from a police operation last month. He is believed to be hiding in his home state of Sinaloa, in north-west Mexico.
Six key people, who allegedly helped fugitive drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escape from jail in July, have been arrested in Mexico.
Among those detained is El Chapo Guzman’s brother-in-law and one of the two pilots who flew Guzman to his home state.
Mexico’s attorney general said a member of Guzman’s legal team, described as the mastermind, was also arrested.
El Chapo Guzman, aka Shorty, head of the Sinaloa cartel, escaped from a high-security prison through a specially dug tunnel.
Attorney General Arely Gomez told reporters on October 21 that the suspected mastermind of the escape had repeatedly entered Altiplano prison to visit El Chapo Guzman and update him on the operation’s progress.
She also said El Chapo Guzman’s brother-in-law had supervised the construction of the mile-long escape tunnel and organized transport.
“Today we are able to affirm that the group responsible for planning, organizing and carrying out the escape from outside the prison has been broken up,” Arely Gomez said, without naming the suspects.
The development comes days after officials revealed the drugs lord had suffered face and leg injuries when he narrowly evaded a police operation to recapture him in north-west Mexico earlier this month.
Arely Gomez confirmed on October 21 that after his escape, El Chapo Guzman traveled by land to the city of Queretaro, from where he caught a small plane to his home state of Sinaloa.
The drug lord’s escape was an embarrassment for Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who El Chapo Guzman taunted on Twitter after the event.
Several prison officials have already been arrested under suspicion of giving inside help to El Chapo Guzman, who fled through a tunnel that ran one mile from under a shower in his cell to outside the prison.
He was first arrested in Guatemala in 1993 and spent nearly a decade in another maximum-security Mexican jail before escaping, reportedly in a laundry basket.
El Chapo Guzman was on the run for 13 years before being held again in 2014 after a series of high-profile arrests of associates and covert surveillance by the US authorities.
Further details of the escape of Mexico’s most infamous drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, aka Shorty, have been shown in a new video broadcast by Mexican TV station Televisa.
The leaked footage shows that 26 minutes passed between El Chapo Guzman’s escape from his cell through a tunnel in the shower and guards noticing he was gone.
The hapless guard first on the scene reports a “big” hole – but does not clarify that the prisoner is missing.
El Chapo Guzman has been on the run since his jailbreak on July 11.
The CCTV footage is a longer version of that shown by the government shortly after El Chapo Guzman’s escape and has audio – which the one shown by government officials did not.
It reveals the reaction of the guards as they reach the cell and find no sign of the inmate – and a large hole in the floor of the shower area.
The guard, who is standing just outside the cell, repeatedly calls “Guzman? Guzman?” and receives no answer.
He then alerts his commander, telling him that there is “a hole in the shower drain”.
Asked by his commander how big, the guard says: “Big, boss, big.”
It is only then that the commanding officer says: “Listen, and the inmate is not there?”
“No, boss, he’s not,” the guard replies.
Televisa showed side-by-side shots of the CCTV footage from Shorty Guzman’s cell and from the control centre where guards monitored the prisoners.
Prior to his escape, the sound of loud hammering can be heard and El Chapo Guzman is seen turning up the volume of his TV.
Despite the sound of drilling that could be heard underneath the noise from El Chapo Guzman’s TV, the guards monitoring the screens seem unmoved.
However, it is not clear what the guards could see on their individual monitors.
The staff in the monitoring centre also apparently fail to notice the moment Shorty Guzman disappeared behind a small wall dividing the shower from the rest of his cell.
He had previously apparently used the toilet, inspected the shower area, then put his shoes on.
El Chapo Guzman’s escape from the maximum-security Altiplano jail was a huge embarrassment to the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Not only was it the second time that El Chapo Guzman had broken out of a top security jail, it came just months after the then-attorney general said Guzman did not pose a flight risk.
Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the escape, including many guards and the prison’s director.
On October 14, the governor of north-western Sinaloa state said extra soldiers had been deployed to the border region with Durango state to search for the fugitive drug lord.
Joaquin Guzman was born in Sinaloa and is the leader of the powerful cartel of the same name which has smuggled huge amounts of drugs from South and Central America to the US.
The international crime gang is also engaged in myriad other criminal activities such as money laundering and extortion, and has been blamed for countless murders.
Thirteen top serving and former prison officials have been arrested in Mexico over the escape of the notorious drugs lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman from jail.
Mexico’s ex-head of federal prisons was among 13 people detained, sources close to the prosecutor said.
The ex-directors of the jail from which El Chapo Guzman fled were also reportedly held.
Investigators say El Chapo Guzman had inside help to ease his escape in July through a tunnel under a shower in his cell that ran one mile outside the prison.
It was the second escape from a maximum security prison for El Chapo Guzman, whose Sinaloa cartel is responsible for much of Mexico’s trafficking of drugs to the US.
At least seven officials, including two members of Mexico’s secret service and two prison control room employees, had already been arrested, accused of not raising the alarm once El Chapo Guzman had escaped.
The office of Mexico’s attorney general confirmed the 13 new arrests on September 18, but did not reveal the identity of the suspects.
However, the former national coordinator for Mexico’s prison system, Celina Oseguera, was named as one of the suspects, sources close to the prosecutor told the AFP.
Celina Oseguera was removed from her high-level post after El Chapo Guzman escaped on July 11.
Both directors of Altiplano prison, Valentin Cardenas and Lenor Garcia, who were also sacked after the escape, are also reportedly being held.
After his escape in July, El Chapo Guzman took to Twitter to taunt the police and insult Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Enrique Pena Nieto has promised that all those who had participated in the escape would be punished with “the full weight of the law”.
One point of controversy has been whether the Mexican government should have agreed to a US request to extradite El Chapo Guzman on the basis that American prisons would have been harder for Guzman to break out of.
First arrested in Guatemala in 1993, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman spent nearly a decade in another maximum-security Mexican jail before escaping, reportedly in a laundry basket.
El Chapo Guzman was on the run for 13 years before being held again in 2014 after a series of high-profile arrests of associates and covert surveillance by the US authorities.
Former Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has appeared in court after spending his first night in prison.
Otto Perez Molina, 64, rejected allegations that he was the mastermind of a customs corruption scheme dubbed La Linea, or The Line.
At least 100 people are being investigated over the scheme.
A judge in Guatemala City ordered his detention on September 3 while hearings over the corruption allegations took place.
After a second day of hearings, Otto Perez Molina was again taken from court to a military prison in the capital.
Otto Perez Molina addressed the court on September 4.
“The first thing I want to deny: I don’t belong to La Linea,” he said.
Photo EPA
The former president denied taking any bribes and promised to co-operate with the investigation.
“Your honor, I am not going to risk my dignity, my work, nor all the effort I have made for Guatemala in return for $800,000,” he said, in reference to the amount prosecutors say he received illegally.
Investigators say the scheme involved businesses paying bribes to government officials and customs officers in return for being allowed to evade import duties.
Otto Perez Molina reminded the court that he had rejected much higher bribe offers from the fugitive Mexican drug lord, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman in 1993.
The former president led the operation that led to his arrest in Guatemala.
“After his capture, I was offered 10, 15 times more than that amount in bribes [to let him go]. I didn’t do it because that goes against my principles,” Otto Perez Molina said.
Shorty Guzman, who is the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was extradited to Mexico, but escaped from a high security jail for a second time earlier this year.
Guatemala’s Congress stripped Otto Perez Molina of his immunity from prosecution on September 1.
That opened the way for criminal charges to be brought against him.
Vice-President Alejandro Maldonado was sworn in as interim head of state ahead of elections on September 6 after Otto Perez Molina resigned on September 3.
Alejandro Maldonado is expected to govern until the new president is sworn in on January 14.
Guatemalans go to the polls on September 6 to take part in scheduled general elections.
Otto Perez Molina is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election.
Alejandro Maldonado had only been in the post of vice-president since mid-May, when his predecessor Roxana Baldetti resigned.
Roxana Baldetti is accused of involvement in the same corruption scheme that Otto Perez Molina is said to have masterminded. She is also being held in prison.
Otto Perez Molina’s resignation on September 3 and arrest are a huge victory for an unprecedented anti-corruption protest movement that had swelled in recent months, with regular marches in Guatemala’s major cities.
Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman – Mexico’s top drug lord and one of the world’s most wanted drug baron – has been arrested in Mexico.
El Chapo (Shorty) Guzman was the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which smuggles huge amounts of illegal drugs into the US.
He had been on the run since escaping a high-security prison in a laundry basket in 2001.
Mexican police arrested him in Sinaloa state, in a joint operation with US anti-drugs forces.
Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto used his Twitter account to praise the forces involved in the arrest in the north-western resort of Mazatlan, in Sinaloa state.
Joaquin Guzman was taken to Mexico City and paraded before the media, before boarding a helicopter surrounded by heavily armed troops.
He was taken straight to prison, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said.
The US state department had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.
US Attorney General Eric Holder described Shorty Guzman’s arrest as “a landmark achievement” for Mexico and “a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States”.
Joaquin El Chapo Guzman was the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which smuggles huge amounts of illegal drugs into the US (photo Reuters)
Shorty Guzman has been indicted in the US on federal trafficking charges.
The Sinaloa cartel controls much of the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine to the US.
Joaquin Guzman’s arrest is a big boost for the administration of Enrique Pena Nieto.
Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office just over two years ago, said he intended to change the “war on drugs” policy of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, which critics say led to a rise in violence throughout Mexico.
But Mexican police and troops have killed or arrested key figures in the drugs cartels since Enrique Pena Nieto came to power.
The US has also arrested several associates and relatives of Shorty Guzman.
In May 2012, the US Treasury Department put two of his sons – Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Ovidio Guzman Lopez – on its blacklist of drugs kingpins.
Their assets were frozen and US nationals and companies were prevented from doing business with them.
Shorty Guzman’s father-in-law, Ines Coronel, was arrested nearly a year ago. He was accused of smuggling drugs into the US.
Joaquin Guzman was born in the town of Badiraguato, probably 56 years ago, and became an important figure in the drug cartels in the 1980s.
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