Advertisement

El Chapo, Mexico’s notorious drug lord, found guilty in U.S. trial

Click to play video: 'El Chapo found guilty on all counts, expected to get life in prison'
El Chapo found guilty on all counts, expected to get life in prison
Joaquin El Chapo Guzman has been found guilty on all counts on drug trafficking charges, murder – Feb 12, 2019

Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was convicted Tuesday of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation after a three-month trial packed with Hollywood-style tales of grisly killings, political payoffs, cocaine hidden in jalapeno cans, jewel-encrusted guns and a naked escape with his mistress through a tunnel.

Guzman faced a drumbeat of drug-trafficking and conspiracy convictions that could put the 61-year-old escape artist behind bars for decades in a maximum-security U.S. prison selected to thwart another one of the breakouts that embarrassed his native country.

WATCH BELOW: DEA shares video from Mexican drug lord El Chapo’s 2017 extradition

Click to play video: 'DEA shares video from Mexican drug lord El Chapo’s 2017 extradition'
DEA shares video from Mexican drug lord El Chapo’s 2017 extradition
Story continues below advertisement

New York jurors whose identities were kept secret reached a verdict after deliberating six days in the expansive case, sorting through what authorities called an “avalanche” of evidence gathered since the late 1980s that Guzman and his murderous Sinaloa drug cartel made billions in profits by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the U.S.

WATCH BELOW: El Chapo appears in court before his U.S. trial

Click to play video: 'Mexican drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ makes court appearance after surprise extradition to U.S.'
Mexican drug kingpin ‘El Chapo’ makes court appearance after surprise extradition to U.S.

As the judge read the verdict, Guzman stared at the jury straight-faced. When the jury was discharged, he leaned back in his chair to catch the eye of his wife, who gave him a subtle thumbs-up.

U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan lauded the jury’s meticulous attention to detail and the “remarkable” approach it took toward deliberations. Cogan said it made him “very proud to be an American.”

Story continues below advertisement

WATCH BELOW: Cross-border tunnel discovered between U.S. and Mexico

Click to play video: 'Cross-border (and under-border wall) tunnel discovered in Texas'
Cross-border (and under-border wall) tunnel discovered in Texas

Evidence showed drugs poured into the U.S. through secret tunnels or hidden in tanker trucks, concealed in the undercarriage of passenger cars and packed in rail cars passing through legitimate points of entry — suggesting that a border wall wouldn’t be much of a worry.

The prosecution’s case against Guzman, a roughly 5½-foot figure whose nickname translates to “Shorty,” included the testimony of several turncoats and other witnesses. Among them were Guzman’s former Sinaloa lieutenants, a computer encryption expert and a Colombian cocaine supplier who underwent extreme plastic surgery to disguise his appearance.

WATCH BELOW: Mexican media share footage of tunnels where El Chapo was re-captured

Click to play video: 'Mexican Media shown tunnel where Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman re-captured'
Mexican Media shown tunnel where Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman re-captured

One Sinaloa insider described Mexican workers getting contact highs while packing cocaine into thousands of jalapeno cans — shipments that totaled 25 to 30 tons of cocaine worth US$500 million each year. Another testified how Guzman sometimes acted as his own sicario, or hitman, punishing a Sinaloan who dared to work for another cartel by kidnapping him, beating and shooting him and having his men bury the victim while he was still alive, gasping for air.

Story continues below advertisement

WATCH: Joaquin El Chapo Guzman’s wife Emma Coronel Aispuro leaves court after her husband was found guilty on all counts of drug trafficking charges. 

Click to play video: 'El Chapo’s wife leaves court after guilty verdict'
El Chapo’s wife leaves court after guilty verdict
In this Jan. 8, 2016 file photo, drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is made to face the media in Mexico City as he is escorted by Mexican soldiers following his recapture six months after escaping from a maximum security prison. AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo

The defence case lasted just half an hour. Guzman’s lawyers did not deny his crimes as much as argue he was a fall guy for government witnesses who were more evil than he was.

Story continues below advertisement

Defence attorney Jeffrey Lichtman urged the jury in closing arguments not to believe government witnesses who “lie, steal, cheat, deal drugs and kill people.”

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

On Tuesday, Lichtman called the conviction “devastating,” but he said he was proud that the defence “left it all on the battlefield.”

WATCH BELOW: El Chapo’s lawyer vows to fight on after guilty verdict

Click to play video: 'Defense attorney says he’ll continue to fight for El Chapo'
Defense attorney says he’ll continue to fight for El Chapo

Deliberations were complicated by the trial’s vast scope. Jurors were tasked with making 53 decisions about whether prosecutors have proven different elements of the case.

The trial cast a harsh glare on the corruption that allowed the cartel to flourish. Colombian trafficker Alex Cifuentes caused a stir by testifying that former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto took a $100 million bribe from Guzman. Peña Nieto denied it, but the allegation fit a theme: politicians, army commanders, police and prosecutors, all on the take.

Story continues below advertisement

The tension at times was cut by some of the trial’s sideshows, such as the sight of Guzman and his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, showing up in matching burgundy velvet blazers in a gesture of solidarity. Another day, a Chapo-size actor who played the kingpin in the TV series “Narcos: Mexico” came to watch, telling reporters that seeing the defendant flash him a smile was “surreal.”

Emma Coronel Aispuro, center, wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leaves federal court, Monday, Feb. 11, 2019, in New York. AP Photo/Craig Ruttle

While the trial was dominated by Guzman’s persona as a near-mythical outlaw who carried a diamond-encrusted handgun and stayed one step ahead of the law, the jury never heard from Guzman himself, except when he told the judge he wouldn’t testify.

But his sing-songy voice filled the courtroom, thanks to recordings of intercepted phone calls. “Amigo!” he said to a cartel distributor in Chicago. “Here at your service.”

Story continues below advertisement

WATCH BELOW: Mexican, U.S. reports dispute Sean Penn’s version of El Chapo arrest

Click to play video: 'Mexican, U.S. reports conflict Sean Penn’s role in ‘El Chapo’ capture'
Mexican, U.S. reports conflict Sean Penn’s role in ‘El Chapo’ capture

One of the trial’s most memorable tales came from girlfriend Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, who testified she was in bed in a safe house with an on-the-run Guzman in 2014 when Mexican marines started breaking down his door. She said Guzman led her to a trap door beneath a bathtub that opened up to a tunnel that allowed them to escape.

Asked what he was wearing, she replied: “He was naked. He took off running. He left us behind.”

This undated photo provided by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York shows Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York via AP

The defendant had previously escaped from jail by hiding in a laundry bin in 2001. He then got an escort from crooked police officers into Mexico City before retreating to one of his many mountainside hideaways. In 2014, he pulled off another jail break, escaping through a mile-long lighted tunnel on a motorcycle on rails.

Story continues below advertisement

WATCH BELOW: Inside El Chapo’s tunnel escape route

Even when Guzman was recaptured in 2016 before his extradition to the United States, he was plotting another escape, prosecutor Andrea Goldbarg said in closing arguments.

In this Jan. 19, 2017 file photo, authorities escort Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, centre, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. U.S. law enforcement via AP

“Why? Because he is guilty and he never wanted to be in a position where he would have to answer for his crimes,” she told the jury. “He wanted to avoid sitting right there. In front of you.”

Story continues below advertisement

WATCH: Mexican drug lord El Chapo found guilty on all counts

Click to play video: 'Mexican drug lord El Chapo found guilty on all counts'
Mexican drug lord El Chapo found guilty on all counts

Sponsored content

AdChoices