Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts

Monday, January 11, 2016

Bin Laden, And Now El Chapo



Bin Laden, And Now El Chapo

He got Bin Laden. And now El Chapo. Who is left standing? I don’t see anyone. This is a clean sweep. There’s noone else of stature left. Quick question: give me the name of the leader of ISIS. I don’t know either. We could both look it up, but my point has been proven.

I can see another movie coming out of this. Sean Penn got played. I mean, who does not want to be in a movie? I don’t know about you, but I do. A journalist and some Hollywood appeal to ego can do what massive intelligence can’t. It’s a needle in a haystack problem reoriented and turned into a let’s lure the bastard out of the rathole kind of thing. A haystack has nothing on a tropical jungle. Don’t let maps fool you.

Another Zero Dark Thirty is on its way.

I almost feel like this is why the Hollywood people make campaign contributions to people who end up being president. Look at the ROI, it’s HUGE! Software people would kill for this kind of margins!

While there is one less drug dealer out on the streets of Chicago. Some good got done. Because these organizations are so hierarchical, getting the top guy is a deep punch. El Chapo’s son, heir apparent, has feet that don’t fit the boots. Neither the drug trade nor his organization have been eliminated. But suddenly no Scarface is feeling safe anywhere in Latin America right now. Or in Miami, or in Chicago. Maybe they also grabbed notebooks with phone numbers in the sweepstakes.

The most wanted man in Chicago has been captured.








Sean Penn's secret interview with 'El Chapo' led to capture
Mexican drug lord’s dreams of biopic aided in his capture
After months of searching, it was Guzmán’s contact with movie producers and actresses about a biopic based on his life that ultimately helped authorities recapture the chief of the Sinaloa cartel along a highway outside a coastal city, according to Mexican attorney general Arely Gómez González. ....... Guzmán’s interview with Penn helped lead authorities to Guzmán’s whereabouts in Durango state in October. ....... Famous for his Houdini-like disappearing acts, Guzmán vanished down an escape hatch and into the sewer. It wasn’t until he popped up four blocks away, stole a car, and sped out of town that Mexican authorities finally captured him on the highway and ended six months of national humiliation for letting the world’s top drug lord go free. ....... “I never thought they’d catch him again,” said José Carlos Castro, a 29-year-old auto shop employee who worked across from the raided house. “Much less right here.” ....... According to the Rolling Stone article, Guzmán boasted to Penn about his drug empire. “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world,” Guzmán said. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.” ....... Guzmán’s capture was celebrated by law enforcement officials in Washington because Guzmán runs a drug-trafficking network with vast international reach that has been dumping tons of cocaine and heroin into U.S. cities for years. But more than that, it represented a massive vindication, at least symbolically, for a Mexican government that has often seemed incapable of alleviating the brutal drug war violence that has left some 100,000 dead in the past decade. ...... After two prison escapes, many expect the Mexican government to extradite Guzmán to the United States. ..... The Mexican attorney general’s office said in a statement Saturday that extradition procedures would begin. But that could take weeks or months, as the accusations against Guzmán must be reviewed and a judge needs to recommend a course of action. ...... Over the next weeks and months, as military operations focused on his home state of Sinaloa, authorities chipped away at the vast network of accomplices who helped Guzmán escape from a maximum-security prison. They arrested corrupt prison guards and officials, relatives who handed out bribes and oversaw tunnel construction, and his trusted pilots, who flew him to Sinaloa. ....... In October, they tracked him to a ranch house in the town of Pueblo Nuevo in the western state of Durango. ..... The neighborhood was upper middle class: The mayor and the governor’s mother lived nearby. The house also sat directly above the sewer tunnels. ........... “I thought we were in Syria,” said one neighbor who lived a block away and refused, like many others interviewed, to give her name out of fear for her safety. “This has been the biggest shock of my life. The world’s most-wanted man is my neighbor.” ........ A white sedan was stopped at the traffic light when they reached the street. Guzmán and Gastelum ordered a man and a woman out of the car and sped off through drizzling rain. ........ “I think it’s kind of stupid,” said a guest from Tijuana who refused to give his name for security reasons. “If you have that kind of money, why would you be here in Los Mochis? You’d be in Dubai or Switzerland.” ...... Guzmán was later flown to Mexico City and returned to Altiplano prison, the facility he escaped from in July. For a year and a half before that, he lived in a tiny concrete cell with a hole in the floor for a toilet. To free him, his accomplices cut through the floor of his shower stall and ferried him into a mile-long tunnel equipped with a motorcycle.
In Mexican town where ‘Chapo’ broke out of jail, admiration and awe
“A thief is someone who takes your watch, steals your phone,” he said. “This man gives work to thousands of people and raises the economy of the country.” ....... It’s people in the United States who buy his drugs, Medina added. ..... Amid the working-class neighborhoods and rolling farmlands surrounding the prison, there is support for Guzmán and fascination with his escape. Residents see him as the drug lord, not the assassin; the benefactor, not the extortionist; a world-famous Mexican celebrity who outsmarted and embarrassed a deeply unpopular government. ....... “He’s more than a drug trafficker. With this, many people will consider him a saint.” ...... he was in isolation under 24-hour video surveillance and wearing a tracking bracelet. But because of privacy and human rights concerns, Osorio Chong said, the cameras in Guzmán’s cell did not cover a small portion of the shower area, and it was in that tiny blind spot that his tunnelers made their entrance. ....... The record of the brutal recent years of Mexico’s drug war shows that Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel — the wealthiest and most powerful drug-running operation — killed thousands of people. He has a long rap sheet in Mexico and the United States. And now he is again one of the world’s most-wanted criminals. ........ “Chapo is one of the narcos who doesn’t bother people,” said a man in a butcher shop who gave his name as Pablo. “They’re not all the same. He doesn’t kidnap, rob, kill. And he gives jobs.” ...... “He can come back and start a war,” she said. “He’s one of the big ones. It depends on how they treated him inside. If it was bad, he’s going to come back.”
Sean Penn Interview With “El Chapo” Helped Authorities Locate Drug Lord
The actor turned gonzo journalist carried out a seven-hour interview with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán—and the pair later kept in contact by phone and video—for a Rolling Stone piece published late Saturday night. The piece is accompanied by a two-minute video interview of Guzmán in which the drug lord answers questions that Penn sent via BlackBerry Messenger. ....... Now Mexican authorities are saying the meeting between the Hollywood star and the drug kingpin in October helped them locate Guzmán. Although they did not capture “El Chapo” at the time, apparently because authorities decided not to open fire as the drug lord was with two women and a child. But it proved to be a major breakthrough in the manhunt and helped officials track him down and eventually capture him on Friday, six months after his second escape from prison. Shortly after his capture, officials said that part of what helped officials locate the fugitive was his desire to make a movie about his life. ....... The head of the Sinaloa cartel had previously denied he was involved in drug trafficking, telling a group of journalists in 1993 that he was a farmer. ...... The cartel he leads may be among the world’s deadliest, but Guzmán insisted he is not a violent person. “Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more,” he said. “But do I start trouble? Never.” Still, he evidently doesn’t want to pretend he’s a nobody. “I don’t want to be portrayed as a nun,” he tells Penn at one point. ........ Although he was evidently interested in making a movie about his life, Guzmán was “unimpressed with its financial yield,” writes Penn. ...... "Mexico is ready,” a Mexican official tells the Associated Press. “There are plans to cooperate with the U.S.”
El Chapo’s Vanity Got Him Caught: Drug Lord Wanted to Make Movie About His Life
In the end, his narcissism did him in. Cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán—the world’s most notorious drug kingpin—was proud of what he had accomplished in his life and wanted the world to know his story. It was this desire to share his tale of going from poverty to one of the world’s richest men that helped authorities locate the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel at a dingy roadside motel, six months after his second escape from prison. ....... An “important element in determining El Chapo’s whereabouts was finding out that he wanted to film an autobiographical film,” Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gómez González said at a news conference. “He established communication with actresses and producers, which became a new line of investigation.” The names of the actresses and producers were not revealed. ........ [Guzmán] had started the process of making a biopic on a life in which he went from rags to riches, from dropping out of school and selling oranges in the street to landing on the Forbes list of billionaires. It was as if he wanted his own version of Narcos, the popular Netflix series on the life of slain Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar—except while alive and able to influence the casting and script. ......... Authorities almost had him in October but decided not to pursue him because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl. ....... extraditing Guzmán was the only way to make sure his capture would have an effect on the drug trade.
Sean Penn and 'El Chapo' secret interview: What happens next

First came the arrest, then the publication of a bombshell interview in a mountainous Mexican jungle, and now the extradition process.

....... Before the interview came to light, two U.S. law enforcement officials had said tracking of cell phones and electronic exchanges of people close to him led to his recapture. Mexican authorities said they captured Guzman partly because his representatives contacted filmmakers and actors about making his biopic. ..... There have been conflicting reports on whether Mexican officials knew about the meeting...... But the timing of the interview coincides with reported sightings and near-misses. ........ In October, the same month Penn interviewed him, authorities said they almost caught Guzman but he slipped away.
Theatrics Surrounding El Chapo’s Capture Distract From Mexico’s Real Woes
Pinning down the meaning of Joaquín Guzmán Loera — the deadly and celebrated Mexican drug trafficker known as El Chapo — is a constant battle between tragedy and farce. ..... Many, though, seemed to take it as further justification for an abiding cynicism toward the government and its ability to combat drug traffickers who all too often seem not only above the law, but also stranger than fiction. ....... Social media buzzed with jokes about the capture and the interview, including a derogatory hashtag using Mr. Penn’s name in Spanish. ....... “But the main point is that we have an immense problem with drugs and crime in Mexico, with impunity and with the lack of the rule of law in the criminal system.” ..... To some, Mr. Penn’s account felt less like journalism than mythmaking, an extension of the Hollywood machine that Mr. Guzmán seemed eager to leverage. ...... Both the capture and the publication of the interview have fed the persistent international image of Mexico as a nation hopelessly trapped in the vicious tides of a drug war. The kingpins, with their resources, egos and catchy nicknames, never fail to capture the imagination of the world. ....... Analysts asked why, if the government could hunt down El Chapo, it could not locate 43 students who disappeared from a teachers college in the state of Guerrero. Or why it could not halt the peso’s slide against the dollar, down nearly 20 percent in the past year......... “Instead of focusing on one person and placing all this attention and effort on one guy, they should focus on more relevant issues like education,” said Jose Fuentes López, 22, who waits tables at a coffee shop in Monterrey. ......... “When you see this criminal being interviewed by a world-class actor you know something is not right, because everything is like a show,” he added. “He is a criminal, nothing else.” ....... Too many others still find him compelling. .....

In his home state of Sinaloa, for example, there was no sense of triumph in the arrest of a man many viewed as a native son. Feelings of shock gave way to worry.

....... “We were perfectly comfortable when El Chapo was here,” said a 16-year-old named Elvira, visiting a coffee shop in the city of Los Mochis, where Mr. Guzmán was captured. “Now we are worried someone else is going to come here and try to fill his spot.” ...... For many Mexicans, their government is an institution not to be trusted, and watching Mr. Guzmán consistently outsmart it was a favored pastime. Like elsewhere, people love an outlaw and Mr. Guzmán gave them a lot to love. ...... “Of the 120,000 people dead in the past decade, half come from the wars that the Sinaloa cartel opened” .......

Beyond the death toll, the cartels remain corrupting forces that exert control over every level of government. But unlike the government, which changes hands and switches players regularly, the cartels are far more permanent

...... And shortly after the interview was published Saturday night, Mexicans came up with the hashtag #NoSeanPenndejos, a play on the actor’s name that, roughly translated, means don’t be a jerk.
Sean Penn was right: Spying eyes were on him
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