Yahoo News El Chapo jailed for life: Who is Mexico's most notorious gangster?
Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficker Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman has been sentenced to life in jail for smuggling illegal narcotics into the US.
The criminal, who has made around $14 billion from drug smuggling, was taken to the US to stand trial after he escaped twice from Mexican prisons.
The 62-year-old was found guilty at New York’s federal court of ordering the smuggling of cocaine and other drugs into the US during his 25-year reign and organising the kidnap, torture and murder of anyone who got in his way.
He is thought to be behind the trafficking of nearly a quarter of the world’s entire supply of illegal drugs.
Guzman is nicknamed El Chapo, which translates as ’shorty’, due to his five-foot, six-inch height.
Experts say he is likely to end up at the federal government’s ‘Supermax’ prison in Florence, Colorado, known as “Alcatraz of the Rockies”.
Guzman is the former head of the Sinaloa cartel, which is believed to be the biggest supplier of drugs to the US.
He spent eight years in prison during the 1990s before he escaped in 2001 and continued his trade as one of the biggest drug lords in the world, comparable to Pablo Escobar and Al Capone.
He was on the run until his capture in 2014.
Guzman escaped a maximum security Mexican jail through an underground tunnel in 2016 and was extradited to the US in 2017.
Bribery is believed to be behind both of his incredible jailbreaks.
The court heard that Guzman would smuggle drugs in plastic bananas and jalapeño cans.
During the trial, it was alleged that former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto accepted a $100 million bribe from Guzman, an accusation the politician denies.
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Other allegations made were that he buried a rival alive, had a murder room and even owned a private zoo.
A Netflix series on the drug lord chronicles the true story of this rise, capture and escape.
