"Chapo" Guzmán could be sentenced to life imprisonment after a trial in front of a film

Mexican capo Joaquín "Chapo" Guzmán, he hopes on Wednesday to be sentenced to life imprisonment after a historic trial in the United States. After two film leaks in Mexican jails and three no less spectacular captures, the famous drug trafficker was extradited to the United States in January 2017 and since then he has been almost totally isolated.

The US government has asked that the capo "ruthless" is sentenced to life imprisonment plus 30 years in prison traffic of hundreds of tons of drugs in the United States for a quarter century. For the trial, dozens of characters, including 56 US government witnesses, including former Chapo badociates, rivals and even an ex-wife, FBI agents, anti-drug agency DEA or Border Patrol, told the story of the capo.

The jury heard Chapo speak with his partners and cocaine bricks, grenade launcher and badault rifles seized at the capo. Witnesses recounted how the Chapo he bought tons of cocaine in Colombia at $ 3,000 a kilo and resold them in the United States up to $ 35,000 a kilo, with the complicity of corrupt Mexican officials.

After three months in which the prosecution presented a mountain of evidence, on February 12, a jury convicted Chapo of trafficking or attempted trafficking of more than 1,250 tons of drugs to the United States, including 1.44 tons of cocaine base, 222 kg of heroin, nearly 50 tons of marijuana and "quantities" of methamphetamines.

Trial of "Chapo" Guzmán reveals pistols with diamonds, bribes and beheadings

"The overwhelming evidence of the trial showed that the accused was a merciless and bloodthirsty Sinaloa cartel leader," the prosecutor's office told Judge Cogan last week, who will announce the sentence Wednesday at 9 am. New York (10 hours in Argentina).

The legend of Chapo was fed by "narcocorridos" who tells his exploits, and in 2011, he was included in the list of the greatest fortunes of the world in the magazine Forbes, with more than 11 billion dollars. Two years later, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Chicago Anti-Crime Commission named him the city's number one public enemy and compared him to Al Capone.

The fall of the capo, become the most wanted fugitive in the world, began on February 22, 2014, when he was apprehended while he was with Emma Coronel and her twins in an apartment in the seaside resort of Mazatlan (Sinaloa). Her stay in prison was brief before the second escape, but her ego betrayed and contacted the Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and American actor Sean Penn to record her biography. According to the Mexican authorities, this would have led to his location and his last arrest in January 2016.

These were the most incredible moments of the process:

Tortures, murders: Isaias "Memin" Valdez Rios, former friend of Chapo, said he saw Chapo himself torturing and executing three rival drug traffickers. One of them was buried alive after Chapo shot him, the other two crushed him with sticks before executing them and throwing them into a bonfire. The prosecution ensures that Chapo ordered to kill or tortured and killed at least 26 people or groups of people.

Pots of wine: Two ex-Chapo members recounted how they had bought millions of dollars in cash from senior Mexican government officials to find rivals, expand their business and evade authorities, as well as federal judicial police forces and municipal, the armed forces and even the authorities. Interpol. And according to Chapo's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, also to two former presidents of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón, who denied the charges.

"Chupeta": The face disfigured by innumerable surgical procedures to change his eyes, nose, jaw, cheeks and ears, the former head of the Colombian Cartel of the North Valley, Juan Carlos "Chupeta" Ramírez has explained that with the help of Chapo, he had been able to export more than 400 tons of cocaine. In the United States from 1989 to his arrest in 2007. The man, who confessed to having ordered the deaths of about 150 people and was one of the main suppliers of cocaine, said he had retained his services (by paying him with drugs) because he had pbaded the goods in the United States "super fast".

The crazy life of "Chapo" Guzmán: yachts, planes filled with money and a zoo with lions.

Dealer: Jesus "Rey" Zambada, brother of Sinaloa's co-founder Ismael "Mayo" Zambada, said Chapo had bought Colombian cocaine at $ 3,000 a kilo and sold it to 35,000 in New York. "100%" of the drug – between 80 and 100 tons a year – was sent to the United States, he said.

Millionaire: Rejuvenation care in Swiss clinics, a beachfront mansion in Acapulco with a yacht called "Chapito" at the door, ranches in all states, four jets, a handful of women and a private zoo with lions and panthers He was walking in a little train.

In the 1990s, cocaine "was the best deal in the world" and Chapo was the king of Mexico, said his former treasurer, Miguel Angel "Gordo" Martinez, whom the capodon had tried to kill four times. "We have traveled all over the world (…) in Brazil, Argentina, Aruba, all over Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Peru, Cuba, Colombia, Panama, "he said. And in Macau "bet".

The mistress: Former ex-partner of Chapo, Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López, told Chapo's wife, Emma Coronel, how, every morning, in 2014, they escaped capture by Mexican marines in Escapes through a tunnel built under a bathtub, in a house in Culiacán. El Chapo was totally naked and ran in front of her, leaving her behind.

Eat little, vomit a lot and have hallucinations: that is the life of "Chapo" Guzmán in prison

Director: El Chapo wanted to make a film about his life and run it himself, and he worked for several years for that, said his former inferno, the Colombian drug dealer Alex Cifuentes. He wanted the actress Kate Del Castillo, with whom he communicated over the phone, advise him in the film and act accordingly. He also hired a Colombian producer to help him realize the scenario.

The other Chapo: The Mexican capo and Alejandro Edda, the actor who played in the series "Narcos: Mexico" of Netflix, exchanged their greetings at the trial. The actor said that he had gone "to study a man who is in a way a myth, a legend". El Chapo smiled at him and told his lawyer that he thought his double would be higher.

Wife: Emma Coronel, wife of Chapo, 30, mother of her twin daughters, attended the process almost every day, watching and smiling at her 62-year-old husband from the public bank. The authorities do not let the beautiful exreina, who likes to wear tight clothes and high heels, go to Chapo or talk to him on the phone. He could not touch him at trial either.

S.D.