Mexico Formally Begins Process To Extradite

Guzman was re-apprehended Friday and the recapture of the drug lord took a surprise, Hollywood-like twist when a Mexican official said security forces located the world’s most-wanted trafficker thanks to a secret meeting with US actor Sean Penn.

Video footage broadcast by Televisa on Monday showed Marines firing shots inside the property during the dawn raid in Los Mochis in Guzman’s native state of Sinaloa, and images of the interior of the ground floor dressing room where the tunnel entrance was hidden. That echoes comments made by Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez, who on Friday said that the drug boss’ yearning for the silver screen had helped bring him down.

A Mexican federal law enforcement official tells the Associated Press that the country is now willing to send him to the United States to face prosecution.

The interview, in which Penn visited Guzman in his Mexican hideout, was published by Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday evening local time, a day after Guzman’s arrest.

In the interview, the result of a seven-hour meeting, Penn and Guzman discuss various topics, including drug trafficking. “They won’t challenge everything at once… they can drip, drip, milk it that way”.

After Guzman escaped prison last summer, Penn posed the idea of the magazine interview, writing, “Kate agreed to make the bridge, sending our names for vetting across the border”. Interpol agents served Guzman with the formal orders at the Altiplano prison where he was being held.

Going forward, the Mexican government will try to extradite El Chapo to the U.S. That’s a plan the Mexican government had initially resisted, but after his escape from prison in July, they began to rethink their strategy.

Rubio said on Sunday that he “doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Sean Penn”, but that it was “fantastic” that authorities used the interview between Penn and Guzman to help track Guzman down.

The Attorney General’s Office issued a statement Sunday it’s started the extradition mechanism by notifying Guzman that two arrest warrants from the US are being processed. And in a stunning admission, he continued unapologetically: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”. 3, after he escaped.

Guzman’s lawyers can raise motions to try and block any extradition and the process has to go through the judicial system, our correspondent says.

Analysts say the government should extradite Guzman instead of taking the risk of losing him again.

Regarding Penn, the daily added, “the PGR can request the cooperation of US authorities” in arranging to interview him as a witness at a Mexican embassy. He said that they are usually turned down, but each one means a judge has to schedule a hearing. The process could take months, and he would have the right to appeal.

The interview is said to be taking place in a jungle late a year ago.