Joaquín Guzmán

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Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as 'Joaquín "el Chapo" Guzmán ("Shorty") (born 1954) is the head of an international drug trafficking organization referred to as either the "Alianza de Sangre" or the Sinaloa Cartel, named after the Mexican Pacific Coast state where it got its start. During the 1980s, Guzmán was associated with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo (known as El Padrino), head of the dominant drug trafficking group in Mexico at that time. After Félix Gallardo's capture he left the organization and soon gained notoriety as director of his own criminal enterprise.

Guzmán is well known for his use of sophisticated tunnels, like the one located in Douglas, Arizona, to smuggle cocaine from Mexico into the United States in the early 1990s. In 1993, a 7.3 ton shipment of his cocaine, concealed in cans of chili peppers, destined for the US was seized in Tecate, Baja California.

When he was arrested in 1991, the drug boss pulled $50,000 from a suitcase and dumped it on the desk of the Mexico City police chief. He later walked out a free man. Another time, he provided a Jalisco police commander with $1 million and five Dodge Ram Charger SUVs to allow a pair of cargo planes to land without any interference.

In May 1993, members of the rival Arellano Félix Organization coordinated a failed attempt to assassinate Guzmán in Guadalajara, Jalisco, which resulted in the much publicized murder of the prominent Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo. Police believe the Arellano Félix organization thought Guzmán Loera was in the car, but the Cardinal was shot instead.

The public were outraged and the feds went after the drug barons like never before. He was jailed, but continued to run his smuggling network from a luxurious cell, where he kept a selection of wines and entertained prostitutes. Then, a few days before he was due to be extradited to the USA, he paid his way out of prison and hid in a laundry van as it drove through the gates. The warden and 30 guards were implicated in the escape - rumoured to have cost him $500,000. For his escape,he had procured the help of the "Mayo" Zambada, "Azul" Esparragoza and the Beltr&aaute;n Leyvas.

Also in 1993, an even more sophisticated tunnel that stretched from Tijuana, Baja California, to the Otay Mesa, California area was discovered. The following month, Guzmán Loera was arrested in Mexico on homicide and drug charges. On January 19, 2001, after his escape from prison he quickly regained control of the Sinaloa cartel, which he still controls today. Authorities say Guzmán's push to cut down competitors (the Gulf Cartel, and its Los Zetas-killers and the Juárez and Tijuana cartel) on the U.S.-Mexico border is creating the chaos that led President Vicente Fox to deploy soldiers and federal police in June 2005 to the streets of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros, all border cities adjacent to the U.S. state of Texas.

In November 2004, 200 paras swooped on his Sierra Madre stronghold in Blackhawk helicopters. His voice had been heard on a tapped phone line half an hour earlier, but the drug king got away. All the paras could do was blow up his Hummer and Dodge Ram pick-up truck.

In June 2005, they grabbed his brother, son, two nephews and a niece. They also seized nine houses and six vehicles. But once again they missed out on the main man.

Recently, he openly strolled into a restaurant in Nuevo Laredo with a fleet of bodyguards. After taking his seat, he told the 40 or so diners not to be alarmed and not to use their mobile phones. After eating, he dropped a handful of hundred-dollar bills on the table and walked to the door. He turned around and said, 'Order what you want, and I'll pay.'

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) currently has a $5,000,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and prosecution.