‘El Chapo’ Sought to Make Biopic, Which Led to Capture in Mexico

An interview the Hollywood actor Sean Penn had with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman helped authorities re-capture the Mexican drug kingpin, it has emerged.

Guzman was arrested in a deadly military raid early Friday that left five suspects dead in Los Mochis, a coastal city in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa.

The Attorney General’s Office of Mexico indicated on Saturday that the recapture of the country’s most notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman marks the start of proceedings for his extradition to the United States.

The 58-year-old’s arrest is a major sigh of relief for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose administration was humiliated when Guzman broke out of a maximum-security prison on July 11.

Authorities said the marines did not shoot Guzman during the raid because he was accompanied by two women and a girl, but that he hurt himself in a fall.

Another leg of the day-long trip through central Mexico was on a light aircraft allegedly fitted with equipment to evade radar detection, Penn said in a story published in Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday. Penn discusses topics ranging from drug trafficking to Middle East politics with Guzman.

Officials in Mexico have so far avoided talking publicly about any extradition to the US for the head of the worldwide Sinaloa Cartel, who also made a prison break in early 2013 before being recaptured.

“Mexico is ready. There are plans to cooperate with the USA”, said the official, who spoke on condition anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment.

But he cautioned that there could be a lengthy wait before United States prosecutors can get their hands on Guzman.

Mexico’s government was aware of the October interview with the legendary boss of the Sinaloa drugs cartel and was closely monitoring Penn’s movements, a second government source told the news agency.

Authorities first arrested Guzman in Guatemala in 1993.

“That can take weeks or months, and that delays the extradition”, he said.

The drug lord – who had escaped from a maximum security Mexican jail – even sent Penn a 17-minute video of him answering the actor’s questions about his life, using the exercise as an opportunity to boast about his wealth and relaxed life. “Unfortunately, as I said, where I grew up there was no other way and there still isn’t a way to survive, no other way to work in our economy to be able to make a living”.

“They have to extradite him”, said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico. Those requests resulted in courts in Mexico’s 3rd and 8th districts issuing arrest warrants with the objective of global extradition, the AP said.

El Chapo was one of the most wanted men in the world and Sean Penn knew exactly where to find him… speaking with the drug lord in an interview in the days leading up to his arrest.

Guzman was then sent to Altiplano Federal Prison in Almoloya de Juarez, where he successful made another daring escape last summer. “We’ve had cases that take six years”.

Juan Pablo Badillo says that is because “Mexico has laws grounded in the constitution”.

The attorney general’s office said that lawyers for Guzman would have three days to file objections and 20 more days to prove them, though that timeframe could be extended, AFP news agency reported.