MEXICO CITY: The world’s most-wanted drug lord was captured for a third time in a daring raid by Mexican marines Friday, six months after he tunneled out of a maximum security prison in a made-for-Hollywood escape that deeply embarrassed the government and strained ties with the United States.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced the capture of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman using his Twitter account: “mission accomplished: we have him.”
Few had thought Guzman would be taken alive, and few now believe Mexico will want to try to hold him a third time in Mexican prisons. He escaped from maximum-security facilities in 2001 and on July 11, 2015, the second breakout especially humiliating for the Pena Nieto administration, which only held him for less than 18 months. The U.S. has sought his extradition, though Mexico in the past has said he would serve sentences here first.
“The arrest of today is very important for the government of Mexico. It shows that the public can have confidence in its institutions,” Pena Nieto said in a brief live message Friday afternoon.
Guzman was apprehended after a shootout between gunmen and Mexican marines in Los Mochis, a seaside city in Guzman’s home state of Sinaloa, said a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name. He said Guzman was taken alive and was not wounded.
Five people were killed and one Mexican marine wounded in the clash at a house in an upscale neighborhood of Los Mochis.
It was unclear if Guzman was there or nearby when the raid was underway. A law enforcement official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Guzman was captured at a motel on the outskirts of Los Mochis.
That official said Friday’s raid on the house was related to the later capture of Guzman at the hotel. Guzman may have been at the house and fled while his gunmen and bodyguards provided covering fire from the house, the official said.
Marines checked the storm drain system, though it was unclear if Guzman had once again fled through the drains. In 2014, he escaped capture by fleeing through a network of interconnected tunnels in the drainage system under Culiacan, the Sinaloa state capital.
After his first capture in Guatemala in June 1993, Guzman was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He reportedly made his 2001 escape from the maximum security prison in a laundry cart, though some say that is untrue.
In his second escape last July, he slipped down a hole in his shower stall in plain view of guards into a mile-long tunnel.