Outside the 'South': Sean Penn unwittingly led authorities to El Chapo: Actor under investig
By OLLIE GILLMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
Sean Penn unwittingly led Mexican marines to El Chapo after meeting him for an extraordinary interview - and is now under investigation.
The sensational meeting took place deep in the Mexican jungle in October and was arranged by Penn, Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and a fixer, with the permission of the Sinaloa cartel.
El Chapo admitted in the bizarre interview to being the biggest drug trafficker in the world and said he sent engineers to Germany to learn how to build the tunnel he would eventually use to escape a maximum security prison.
The cartel boss was captured on Friday in a daring 4am raid by Mexican marines and was returned to Altiplano jail. The double Oscar-winning actor's meeting with El Chapo led to the gun battle in which he was captured, an official said.
Penn and del Castillo are now under investigation in Mexico.
In an article written by Penn for Rolling Stone, El Chapo says: 'I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.'
Despite his notoriety, up until this point the Mexican gangster had always insisted he was 'just a farmer'.
Penn wrote that El Chapo sent engineers - who were already accomplished in tunnel-building from the multitudes of underground paths they have built beneath the U.S.-Mexico border - to Germany to learn how to construct the tunnel he fled down as he escaped from prison in July last year.
The actor claimed the cartel leader was concerned about the low-lying water table beneath the jail.
The Mystic River star said he did not turn El Chapo in because the drug lord's trust 'was not to be f***ed with'.
'I take no pride in keeping secrets that may be perceived as protecting criminals, nor do I have any gloating arrogance at posing for selfies with unknowing security men. But I'm in my rhythm. Everything I say to everyone must be true,' Penn wrote.
It came as:
Scores of people on Twitter called for Sean Penn to be arrested for meeting the world's most wanted drug lord and not turning him in to the authorities;
It was announced El Chapo will fight extradition to the U.S. and his cartel lawyer has already filed six separate injunctions challenging requests to send him to face justice in America - meaning the whole process could take months;
Pictures emerged of the grubby condo where the millionaire was living with his family as fugitives; and
Five suspects were killed in the police raid operation to capture El Chapo and one marine wounded.
BIZARRE MOMENTS IN SEAN PENN'S SEVEN-HOUR CHAT WITH EL CHAPO
1. Sean Penn admits he has never learned how to use a laptop computer.
'At 55 years old, I've never learned to use a laptop. Do they still make laptops?'
2. Penn thought his penis might get chopped off.
'D**k in hand, I do consider it among my body parts vulnerable to the knives of irrational narco types, and take a fond last look, before tucking it back into my pants.'
3. Penn has a drunken day dream about a drone.
'I look to the sky and wonder how funny it would be if there were a weaponized drone above us. We are in a clearing, sitting right out in the open. I down the tequila, and the drone goes away.'
4. El Chapo still isn't keen on Donald Trump.
'I mention Trump. El Chapo smiles, ironically saying, "Ah! Mi amigo!"'
5. For some reason, Penn doesn't want to smile in a photograph with El Chapo.
'I explain that, for authentication purposes, it would be best if we are shaking hands, looking into the camera, but not smiling.'
6. Penn compares El Chapo to a superhero for putting on body armor and picking up a gun.
'Following this Clark Kent-into-Superman extravaganza.'
7. Penn offers to snuggle up to an associate of El Chapo.
'"Listen, man. You don't have to sleep on that couch. The bed's big. We can talk and cuddle."'
8. Penn's flatulence in front of El Chapo.
'At this moment, I expel a minor traveler's flatulence (sorry), and with it, I experience the same chivalry he'd offered when putting Kate to bed, as he pretends not to notice.'
The U.S. has filed at least seven extradition requests in six different states for Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman to be extradited but justice officials warned that his lawyers were likely to 'milk it' by firing off different appeals at different stages of the extradition battle to prolong the legal tussle.
El Chapo was caught after contacting actors and directors about making a Narcos-style biopic about his life, Mexican officials said. It is not clear whether Penn was contacted about the movie.
The seeds for the bizarre meeting between Penn and El Chapo were sown back in 2012 after a representative for the Mexican gangster contacted del Castillo, who had posted tweets saying she had more trust in the cartel than the government.
A lawyer for the Sinaloa cartel said flowers were being sent to the actress, however they never arrived.
Del Castillo later met a fixer called Espinoza - and both of them remained in contact with El Chapo's people after his escape.
Penn later met Espinoza and suggested he meet the fugitive for a magazine article and, incredibly, the Sinaloa cartel agreed to it.
After arriving in Mexico, Penn and his colleagues had all of their electronic items taken away from them by El Chapo's associates and were driven at speeds of over 100mph to an abandoned airstrip.
After boarding a plane, Penn realized his driver had been Alfredo Guzman - El Chapo's son - who would later tell him their aircraft carried scramblers to avoid detection by radar.
Penn revealed that Mexican soldiers waved Alfredo through a military checkpoint and looked 'embarrassed' to have stopped him, showing the cartel's influence and raising questions about the Mexican authorities determination to catch El Chapo.
More than 14 hours after leaving Los Angeles, they finally met the notorious drug lord in a clearing in the depths of the Mexican jungle near the town of Tamazula, Durango, which neighbors his gang's home state of Sinaloa.
The meeting places was around 200 miles from where he was eventually captured in Los Mochis.
Penn wrote that a local family cooked the group enchiladas and tacos before he and El Chapo held seven-hour talks about the cartel boss's life.
The kingpin also claimed he once met Colombian gangster Pablo Escobar, and still sees his own mother fairly often.
Penn also admitted to having a bout of 'traveler's flatulence' in front of El Chapo, who he says ignored it, as well as saying he was wary of having his penis chopped off by 'irrational narco types'.
El Chapo - real name Joaquin Guzman - explained in a video interview how he escaped from the prison and talks of how he became one of the most notorious drug lords of all time.
Speaking to del Castillo, El Chapo explains how he wound up joining the illegal drug trade.
'Well from the age of 15 and on, where I'm from, which is the Municipality of Badiraguato, I was raised on a ranch called La Tuna in that area and up until today there are no job opportunities.
Last July El Chapo tunneled out of his cell in the shower area (pictured) - one of the few places which is not covered by CCTV at the jail
The drugs lord used an adapted motorcycle, which sits on a rail in an underground tunnel, to make his escape from the Altiplano maximum security prison
Authorities discovered the motorcycle, rigged on a special rail system with two metal carts in front of it, which he used to flee through a mile-long long tunnel under the shower space of his prison cell.
'Well, its a reality that drugs destroy. Unforunately, as I said, where I grew up there was no other way and ther still isnt a way to survive. No other way to work in our economy to be able to make a living.'
The cartel boss claims he is not to blame for people becoming addicted to drugs, saying people would continue to take narcotics if he died.
Answering questions on whether he his gang is violent, he says: 'Look... all I do is defend myself. Nothing more. But do I start looking for trouble? Never.'
Mexican authorities knew about the meeting between Penn and El Chapo in October and were close to launching a raid on him that month but had to abort it because he was with two women and a child.
The Sinaloa cartel leader was captured on Friday after a daring 4am raid by Mexican marines at a motel in the town of Los Mochis.
He had earlier fled a separate firefight at a house - where five gangsters were killed and another six arrested - with his right-hand man, who was also later apprehended.
Photographs revealed the less-than-luxurious surroundings where the millionaire, along with his beauty queen wife Emma Coronel Aispuro and their children, lived as fugitives from the Mexican authorities.
JOAQUIN 'EL CHAPO' GUZMAN'S GREAT ESCAPE FROM PRISON IN JULY 2015
The billionaire leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel began his escape at 8.52pm on Saturday, when he entered the showers at the Altiplano maximum-security prison, 50 miles outside of Mexico City.
The drug kingpin prised open a 50cm by 50cm grill in the shower floor, and climbed down a 32ft shaft into the complex tunnel system that his henchmen had spent the last year digging underneath the feet of the prison guards.
Inside the tunnel was electric lighting, a ventilation system and a motorbike waiting to carry him to freedom.
The 0.9mile tunnel led directly from underneath the prison showers to the Santa Juana construction site, just outside of the prison perimeters.
Waiting for him here was a ramshackle building, with just two bedrooms, a cellar, and a change of clothes for the crime lord.
Prison break: A motorcycle adapted to a rail sits in the tunnel under the half-built house where El Chapo made his escape from the Altiplano maximum security prison in July
Slipped away: A composite handout picture taken from a video shows the escape of El Chapo through the tunnel
And El Chapo had everything he needed to disappear into the Mexican countryside once again, for the second time in 15 years.
But the plan took incredibly detailed, exact planning from the group of four highly-skilled engineers, trusted with the liberation of their leader.
They had acquired blueprints of the prison, and worked a gruelling 10 hour a day schedule for almost an entire year before the tunnel was complete.
The tunnel was no small feat of engineering. It was 0.9miles long, 5ft6in high, and 2ft3in wide.
Overall, the team had to shift more than 3,250 tonnes of earth from under the very noses of the prison officials.
The operation would have required 379 dump trucks in total, carrying tens of thousands of bags of earth.
But incredibly, nothing was ever reported.
A couple who live next to the end of El Chapo's escape tunnel have revealed how a mysterious neighbour who called himself 'El Pastor' moved into the area six months ago and claimed he was building a house.
Lorenzo Esquivel and Maria Esther Salgado, live a mile from the Altiplano jail in the town of Almoloya de Juarez.
The couple told how the man moved into the grey, brink building at the start of this year, before embarking on a series of building works.
They said the man – who they described as tall, portly and in his 50s – would often ferry material to and from the site in his red 4x4 and a white pick-up truck.
The man introduced himself as El Pastor – meaning the Shepherd – the couple told MailOnline.
'He definitely wasn't from around here but he was always very friendly,' they said.
'He told us he was building a new house on the property but we never saw any exterior changes.'
On Saturday, the day El Chapo made his escape, the couple described seeing two 'very luxury black 4x4s' also arrive at the property.
They saw the cars drive away again the following morning, along with El Pastor's two vehicles.
Children's toys, most likely belonging to his four-year-old twin daughters, were seen scattered across the home. A dead body lies in the corner of a room - a casualty of the police shoot out. Beds were stripped from the police raid and belongings rifled through as forensic teams worked at the crime scene.
El Chapo will fight extradition to the U.S. and his cartel lawyer has already filed six separate injunctions challenging requests to send him to face justice in America - meaning the whole process could take months.
Juan Masini, former U.S. Department of Justice attache at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, said the extradition process could be drawn out over a period of months.
'They can challenge the judge, challenge the probable cause, challenge the procedure,' he said. 'That's why it can take a long time. They won't challenge everything at once ... they can drip, drip, milk it that way.'
Mexican authorities have confirmed the country is willing to extradite the recaptured drug lord - a total reversal of the government's position after his last capture in 2014.
If the extradition goes ahead, it is likely El Chapo will spent the rest of his life in jail without the possibility of parole.
An official said 'Mexico is ready' for an extradition and 'there are to cooperate with the U.S.' although he warned the legal process could be lengthy and Guzman's attorney is saying he'll battle extradition in the courts.
After his arrest on Friday, Mexican marines returned El Chapo to the same Altiplano jail he was able to tunnel out of in July last year - becoming the first inmate to escape the prison which is considered the most secure in the entire country.
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Mexico celebrations over 'El Chapo' capture mask a near escape - details of apprehension
By Dave Graham and Anahi Rama
LOS MOCHIS, Mexico (Reuters)
For a few frantic hours after a bloody shootout in northwest Mexico on Friday, Mexican security forces lost track of notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman as they chased him through a sewer. He had slipped the net yet again.
As his security team fought back a pre-dawn Navy raid on his safe house in the city of Los Mochis, Guzman scrambled out through a specially built tunnel connected to the city's drainage system, mirroring his escape from prison last year.
Hours passed while helicopters combed the area for sight of the drug lord, flying above the exits to major storm drains.
"He slipped away from the first group charged with capturing him, using the same technique as before, using the drains," said Francisco Salvador Lopez Brito, a senator for the conservative opposition National Action Party in Sinaloa state.
"We could put the fact he was captured down to luck ... He was getting away," he added.
Guzman was not spotted again until about 9 a.m. when he surfaced from a manhole with his henchman Ivan Gastelum about a half mile (1 km) from the safe house, according to people working at the busy traffic intersection.
A muddy automatic weapon was left inside the tunnel beneath the manhole. They hijacked a worn white Volkswagen Jetta, and officials said they later transferred to a stolen red Ford Focus but were arrested by police as they tried to escape the city.
They were then taken to a nearby love motel "Doux" until Navy reinforcements were able to get there.
President Enrique Pena Nieto put the kingpin's capture down to outstanding police work. It certainly restored some credibility to his government, which was ridiculed six months ago when Guzman escaped from a maximum security prison - for the second time - through a tunnel dug right into his cell.
Mexican security officials say Guzman was always the target of the raid in Los Mochis, but some believe the government may not even have known that Guzman was in the house.
Two hours before Pena Nieto announced El Chapo's capture, the Navy issued a statement saying Gastelum had escaped in the firefight at the safe house. But it made no mention of Guzman, the world's most-wanted drug trafficker.
However, according to subsequent testimony from authorities and eyewitnesses, it turned out that federal police had captured both men just a few minutes earlier.
Residents in Los Mochis said the net began closing on Guzman at around 4.30 a.m. on Friday, when the crackle of gunfire and loud bangs shattered the silence outside the two-storey white house, whose top floor was obscured by trees thick with foliage.
Shooting continued intermittently for about 45 minutes, and grainy security camera footage from a local business showed flashes of gunfire as more and more Mexican marines moved in.
Five of Guzman's henchmen were killed, although the outside walls of the building showed no signs of bullet holes.
Sightseers from nearby towns stopped by on Sunday to see the house. One recently married couple came in full wedding dress to have their picture taken in front of it as masked marines stood guard.
TRACKING THE TUNNEL EXPERT
The capo slipped away during the shootout, though his escape bid finally ended when police pulled over the hijacked car.
"As I pledged, this arrest had to happen," said Pena Nieto, who first managed to capture Guzman in February 2014 in another raid in Sinaloa. "The achievement shows that when Mexicans work together, there's no obstacle we cannot surmount."
Security officials say El Chapo, or "Shorty," had relaxed his security just enough to allow authorities to pick up his trail.
Among his slip-ups was agreeing to an interview with Hollywood actor Sean Penn, which helped the government track him down, Mexican officials said.
Security forces also identified an expert in digging tunnels within Guzman's circle, and that led them to stake out the house in Los Mochis.
There, the attorney general's office said, Guzman's presence was confirmed late last week after reports of suspicious activity.
Still, one senior official in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said intelligence services got wind of Guzman because they were tracking Gastelum.
The view that the government had stumbled onto Guzman through good fortune was not uncommon among locals of Los Mochis.
"They came for another guy and got him," said Jesus Castro, 37. As long as Guzman was in Mexico, he argued, there was no guarantee he would stay behind bars. "How long will it last?"
(Additional reporting by Jesus Bustamante; Editing by Simon Gardner, Kieran Murray and Cynthia Osterman)
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