President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico released new information of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman on January 8. “Mission accomplished: we have him. I want to inform Mexicans that Joaquin Guzman Loera has been arrested,” tweeted Nieto.
Guzman was arrested and taken to Puente Grande, Mexico, in 1993 on the charges of murder and drug trafficking and later escaped in 2001 supposedly via laundry cart.
Mexican, as well as American authorities, pursued him for over a decade until finally catching up with him in February 2013 on a beach resort in Mazatlan, Mexico. There, he was arrested and taken to maximum security prison Almoloya de Juarez.
The United States requested to extradite Guzman to the U.S. in fear of another escape. President Nieto declined. ¨It would be unforgivable if El Chapo escapes again,” Nieto said in February 2014.
Once comfortably at his new prison, it took Guzman a little over two years to escape once again. Guzman was last seen in the shower unit of his cell where he bent down to where the cell’s camera could not see and disappeared.
Later, Mexican authorities discovered a mile long tunnel equipped with an escape motorcycle directly below Guzman’s shower.
Since that escape on July 11, 2015, Mexican and American personnel have been searching for his whereabouts. Finally authorities caught a break once they intercepted text messages discussing his location in his home town Sinaloa.
The U.S. justice department recently reached out to the Mexican government stating their request to extradite Guzman still stands.
Mexican government officials plan to move Guzman across the border to be tried in the United States as soon as possible. All actions are being taken to assure Guzman’s arrest is permanent.
“This notorious criminal is – and will remain – behind bars, until he faces justice in a court of law,” said DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg.