# Narco King El Chapo
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Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as “El Chapo”, broke out of his cell by crawling out of a hole in the shower.
“The escape of Chapo Guzman translates into two things: More violence for Mexico and more drugs coming into the United States”, Mike Vigik, former chief of international operation, DEA.
El Chapo was the leader of Sinaloa Cartel, a murderous criminal organization that has killed thousands during Mexico’s violent drug wars. Their methods are brutal. But violence isn’t what makes El Chapo different from other traffickers. Instead, his legacy has been shaped by two abilities, transporting more drugs across the border than anyone else and always finding a way to escape authorities.
“El Chapo recaptured after jail break”, BBC. After being captured again in Mexico, El Chapo is standing trial in the United States. It’s the latest chapter for the world’s most powerful drug trafficker and to understand how El Chapo got here. It helps to look at a single innovation, the one tool that El Chapo used to transform the drug trade is the same tool that made him its most elusive target, tunnels.
In 1990, federal agents in Douglas, Arizona, found something new, a sophisticated drug tunnel from the US to Mexico. And when investigators got inside it, they were amazed by what they saw. The tunnel was 300 feet long and lit by an electrical system running along the wall. At one end, a lever raised a hydraulic lift that opened an entrance in the safe house floor. One agent said it was "like something out of a James Bond movie." In fact, it had been built by an architect working for El Chapo. And agents didn't know it yet, but this was their first sign of a major shift in the US drug trade.
In the 1980s, US drug traffic had been dominated by cocaine coming through the Caribbean, but during the next two decades US forces led a crackdown which changed the drug trade in two ways that put El Chapo in the right place at the right time. First, drug traffic shifted to routes through Mexico. Second, as national militaries worked with the US to destroy crops in South America, traffickers focused on drugs they could grow elsewhere. The coca plant is only grown in the Andes mountains, but marijuana can be grown in Mexico, especially in mountain ranges along the western coast. And the same is true for the opium poppy, the raw ingredient processed to make heroin. For both crops, the densest region of cultivation includes the state of Sinaloa, the home of El Chapo. El Chapo also had the ideal way to move those drugs: unlike cocaine, which is odorless and can be tightly packed into a vehicle, marijuana is bulky and has a strong smell. But by using his tunnels, El Chapo could get massive amounts across the border quickly. By 2010, El Chapo had become the most powerful trafficker in the country. And as the Sinaloa Cartel increased their power, their territory expanded to include the entire Western half of the US border. As their control spread west, one particular area became crucial to their operation: a suburb of San Diego called Otay Mesa.
In November 2010, agents found a tunnel in Otay Mesa built by the Sinaloa Cartel. Inside, electricity powered lighting and a ventilation system. Along the floor, a rail system allowed workers to remove rubble during construction and then transport drugs once they started using it. Over the next few years, agents found more massive tunnels. Tunnels like these can take several months and millions of dollars to build, but they’re worth it. The tunnels are so big that traffickers can move multiple tons of drugs at once. As the Sinaloa Cartel continued building in Otay Mesa, their tunnels got more impressive, like building an entrance for one beneath a bathroom floor. El Chapo’s tunnels are dug so deep that ground penetrating radar can’t detect them
A few months later, authorities broke into his hideout in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, where he was arrested after a bloody gun battle. He escaped through a tunnel hidden behind his mirror that led into the sewer, but authorities caught him a few hours later when he crawled out of a manhole and tried to flee town. Authorities are so serious about security that they shut down the Brooklyn Bridge when El Chapo is moved from his Manhattan jail cell to the court house.
@copyright : VOX
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