Mexican actress credited with helping Sean Penn meet ‘El Chapo’

A source close to the Mexican General Attorney’s Office has just confirmed to AFP on Sunday that it will probe Hollywood actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who both allegedly set up the interview with druglord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman while he was on the run in Mexico a year ago.

Guzman faces federal indictments in Chicago and several other US jurisdictions, including San Diego, Texas, Florida and the southern and eastern district of NY. She was first contacted in 2012 by the drug kingpin after tweeting that he should start “trafficking with love”.

Penn’s interview with Guzman, who has twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, appeared late Saturday on the website of Rolling Stone magazine.

The interview is said to be taking place in a jungle late past year. In 2004, the USA government announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction. They said they were aware of the planned meeting so kept track of Penn, allowing them to locate Guzman. Mexican forces used helicopter gunships to attack Guzman’s ranch. After an early morning raid in northwestern Mexico’s Sinaloa State’s town of Los Mochis by Mexican police and marines on Friday, Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera was recaptured, six months after his second prison break. Marines climbed into the drains in pursuit.

Penn has admitted he feared he was being monitored as he flew to Mexico to meet Guzman, for an interview published by Rolling Stone this week.

The entire country is still talking about the incredible capture of one of the most notorious drug lords in the world.

In a stunning admission of his criminal enterprise, Penn says Guzman told him over sips of tequila that “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”. “I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats”.

Unnamed Mexican officials have said Penn’s secret meeting helped lead them to the fugitive. “I think it would take a real self-promoter to go after Penn”.

But the timing of the interview coincides with reported sightings and near-misses.

The dark-haired actress said Guzman never responded and that she did not know him. The Mexican government determined they were valid within the extradition treaty and sent them to a panel of federal judges, who gave orders for detention on July 29 and September 8, after Guzman had escaped.

“This is the kind of thing where, if the prosecutors wanted to question Penn, they’d look for a favorable district”, he said.

Figures that closely resemble Penn and Del Castillo are seen wearing dark glasses, and in Penn’s case, a baseball cap. That may have led Mexican authorities to Guzman’s whereabouts and to his arrest.

One Mexican government source said authorities were considering whether to investigate Penn and del Castillo, possibly for money laundering.