DEA congratulates Mexico on recapture of drug lord Guzman

Once featured in the Forbes list of billionaires, Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel has smuggled billions of dollars worth of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines into the United States and fought vicious turf wars with other Mexican gangs.

Marines were met by gunfire when they swooped in on Friday, leaving five suspects dead and one troop wounded. The first was from a maximum-security prison in 2001 when he reportedly hid in a laundry cart.

The United States filed requests for extradition for Guzman on June 25, before he escaped from prison. “It shows that the public can have confidence in its institutions”, Pena Nieto said later in a public address.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials say Guzman then flew to his home turf at the Sinaloa-Durango state border, where he is revered as a modern-day Robin Hood.

Government officials avoided any talk of extradition following Friday’s arrest, though prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for his extradition in September.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that marines acting on a tip raided a home in the town of Los Mochis before dawn.

In the latest escape in July, Guzman disappeared after stepping into the shower.

For Pena Nieto, the capture of a trafficker who twice slipped out of Mexican prisons is a sorely-needed victory after his presidency was tarnished by graft and human rights scandals and the shame of the kingpin’s flight in July.

The second was in July 2015 when he broke out of a Mexican maximum-security prison through an underground tunnel.

He used his 13 years at large to consolidate his empire before being arrested in Sinaloa state.

Mr Pena Nieto has called the arrest “mission accomplished” – hopefully it is third-time lucky for the government with El Chapo remaining behind bars and the president’s legacy not being that of allowing a violent criminal to escape.

“Guzman Loera will be taken again to the Altiplano prison”, 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Mexico City, Attorney General Arely Gomez told waiting reporters before the drug lord was placed on the helicopter with his alleged security chief, who was also arrested Friday.

Mexican Federal Police spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas confirmed Guzman’s capture to CNN.

The operation resulted in the seizure of four vehicles, two of which are armored; eight long rifles, a handgun, clips, ammunition and even a rocket launcher.

Gomez gave no further details, but indicated that the newly emerged evidence will provide a new line of enquiry into Guzman’s escape.

A leading USA member of Congress said it would be best for the Unites States to handle Guzman’s incarceration.

“The easiest thing would be to swiftly extradite “Chapo” Guzman and, once again, the Mexican state shows that it doesn’t have the strength to punish those who commit crimes in our territory”, Barbosa said. The tunnel had ventilation, lights and a motorbike on rails. A Mexican navy marine inspects an open manhole after the recapture of Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in the city of Los Mochis, Mexico, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016. In 2014, Guzman escaped arrest by fleeing through a network of interconnected tunnels in the city’s drainage system in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.