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Joaquin El Chapo Guzman the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest drug gang in Mexico, who often escapes from prison. Photo/REUTERS
JAKARTA – Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán is the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest drug gang in Mexico. He is now serving a life sentence in the United States (US).
Before being extradited and imprisoned in the US, El Chapo often escaped in various ways from Mexican prisons.
El Chapo is the nickname of Joaquin Guzman which means “Short One” in Spanish.
Joaquin Guzman was born in 1957 into a farming family. He grew up in Badiraguato, a poor and remote area in Sinaloa, the northwestern region of Mexico.
Also read: El Chapo’s Story of Becoming a Sex Addict in Prison: Sleep with as many women as possible
According to Britannica, El Chapo began his criminal career in the 1980s, as a member of the Guadalajara drug lord led by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.
After the business disbanded in the late 1980s, El Chapo formed and headed a cartel in Sinaloa. Armed with previous experience, El Chapo successfully developed drug smuggling techniques in his own way.
That includes building an underground air-conditioned tunnel linking Mexico to the United States.
The Sinaloa cartel has trafficked a wide variety of illegal drugs, including marijuana, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.
In 1993, El Chapo was arrested for the first time in Guatemala and extradited to Mexico. He was eventually sentenced to more than 20 years and imprisoned in maximum security.
