Live burials, underage sex: El Chapo drug trial’s most shocking and bizarre moments
- As the jury begins deliberations, here’s a recap of three months of amazing stories and allegations
Until his trial began, much of the public perception of accused Mexican drug lord “El Chapo”, real name Joaquin Guzman, had come from rumours and legend.
But over the past three months the court has heard what the lead prosecutor, Andrea Goldbarg, called “a mountain of evidence” against the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, including allegations of decades of murder, torture, bribery and corruption.
The stories from the trial have ranged from the horrifying to the downright bizarre; these are some of the most astonishing.
Live burial
Among the many violent exploits Guzman is allegedly responsible for are three murders which a former bodyguard, Isaias Valdez Rios, said he saw Guzman commit. Valdez Rios told the court of two occasions in which he witnessed Guzman torture and murder members of a rival drug cartel.
In one case in 2006 he is said to have instructed his men to dig a hole for a man they had been holding prisoner before shooting him. The victim was thrown in the ground still gasping for air and buried alive.
Eavesdropping
Numerous text messages between Guzman and his wife and lovers were read aloud in court. Cristian Rodriguez, a former tech expert for the cartel, testified that Guzman had instructed him to install tracking spyware on the women’s phones. Rodriguez said Guzman would often turn on the microphones of his lovers’ phones in order to “to see what they would say about him”.
It was this technology that allowed prosecutors to read many of Guzman’s text messages when they might not have otherwise been able to.
Parenting
Among the texts read in court were conversations Guzman had with his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, mother to his two twin daughters.
“Our Kiki is fearless,” he texted when the girls were six months old.
“I’m going to give her an AK-47 so she can hang with me.”
Bribery
As the trial began in November, Guzman’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, alleged that Mexican officials, including former presidents Enrique Pena Nieto and Felipe Calderon, had received bribes to protect Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a rival drug lord.
Later in January, Alex Cifuentes, a former associate of Guzman’s put a price tag on his own alleged bribery, saying he had paid US$100 million to Pena Nieto. Both politicians have denied the allegations, calling them false and defamatory.
The court also heard of a number of other officials, including the former army general Gilberto Toledano, who was alleged to have received regular payments of US$100,000 to look the other way along drug shipping routes.
Lucky escapes
On one occasion Guzman texted his wife soon after a narrow escape from a villa in Cabo San Lucas in 2012.
“I had to run out at 3 in the afternoon,” he wrote.
“I’ve been scratched up, but fine. Thank God … I saw them pounding on the door next-door, but I was able to jump out.”
“Oh, love. That’s horrible,” she responded.
“I’ll be watching the news to see what they say, love.”
Guzman’s penchant for escape was also joked about in court when the lights briefly went out in the courtroom, leaving everyone in the pitch darkness.
When the lights came back on, someone was heard to shout: “He’s gone!” Guzman hadn’t moved, but according to Keegan Hamilton of Vice News: “Everybody laughed, except maybe the US Marshals.”
Moustache dye
After the raid Guzman was said to have left all manner of incriminating evidence behind in the villa, including weapons, but in a text to his wife he shared with her a list of items he really needed her to go out and buy for him, including moustache dye and a new pair of Nikes.
His lawyer argued that the evidence should not be admitted, saying there was no way of knowing if the shoes were actually his. “The jury has no way of knowing. If they don’t fit, what?” Eduardo Balarezo asked.
The line of argument led to a moment of levity at the trial with the witness, former FBI agent Jose Moreno, quipping: “What is this? The OJ trial?”
“You must acquit,” a heckler in the gallery shouted.
Animal-lover
The jury was told of a lengthy list of homes, yachts and planes alleged to belong to Guzman as well as a diamond-encrusted pistol. One detail in particular that stood out was a zoo Guzman was said to have in Guadalajara, as Miguel Angel Martinez, an associate, explained.
“It was a very nice ranch with a house, pool, tennis courts, and he built a zoo.”
The zoo was home to tigers, lions and deer, he said. Guzman would ride around “in a little train”, he said.
Star power
In late January the Mexican actor Alejandro Edda, who plays Guzman in the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico, arrived in court to observe the trial. The visit apparently pleased the real Guzman, who reportedly grinned when he saw Edda in the courtroom. His lawyer agreed he “seemed happy” to see Edda.
Edda scribbled notes during testimonies and borrowed a reporter’s binoculars at one point to get a closer look at the man whose life he inhabits on-screen.
“I think he’s guilty. There’s many, many horrendous things that he did,” Edda said.
“The sad part is I know he’s not the only one. I know that not only the Sinaloan guys are the bad guys, there are many bad guys around us.”
Underage sex
A person referred to as “Commadre Maria” regularly sent Guzman pictures of girls as young as 13, and the notorious drug lord and his associates allegedly paid US$5,000 for each teen and raped them at one of his ranches.
Guzman allegedly raped young girls on multiple occasions and called the youngest among them his “vitamins” because he believed they gave him “life”.
The disturbing allegations were recounted in documents that were unsealed Friday, just two days before jurors in Guzman’s drug-trafficking trial in New York began deliberations. Guzman’s lawyer called them “extremely salacious” and denied the allegations.
Additional reporting by The Washington Post
