US Jury Convicts Mexican Drug Lord El Chapo
NEW YORK (AP) – The notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been convicted of drug-trafficking charges at a trial in New York.
The verdict reached on the sixth day of jury deliberations could put the 61-year-old behind bars for the rest of his life in a high-security U.S. prison selected to thwart another one of the escapes that embarrassed his native country.
Guzman broke out of Mexican prisons twice before he was finally recaptured and extradited to the U.S. in 2017.
Federal prosecutors put on more than 50 witnesses over three months detailing how Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel amassed billions of dollars importing tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the U.S.
Witnesses detailed assassinations and political payoffs, and how drugs were smuggled using tanker trucks, rail cars and even shipments of canned peppers.
