The day I was face to face with "El Chapo" Guzmán – 18/02/2019

June 10, 1993 was a rainy and cold day. A group of foreign correspondents and the bulk of the Mexican press were summoned for a press conference where they would be presented a little known prisoner at that time. I was there more than 25 years ago.

The prisoner in question had been involved in a shooting at the Guadalajara airport, where he was killed after crossfire. one of the highest dignitaries of the Mexican Catholic Church: Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo.

The death of such a character could not go unpunished. And the man designated to bear the death was Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, aka "El Chapo". Heavyweight cartel of Sinaloa and fierce enemy of brothers Arellano Felix in the fight to occupy the scepter of the major drug traffickers in Mexico.

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"El Chapo" was not yet famous because the names that had resonated at that time were those of Felix Gallardo, Don Neto and Caro Quintero, and because of the death of the DEA agent, Enrique " Kiki "Camarena, it is the news that has made rivers of ink flow in the foreign press, mainly in the United States.

After the strict security checks, they gathered us in an outdoor patio, where a large group of policemen, heavily armed, They circled a pile of wooden pallets already wet with persistent rain.

The subject that they brought handcuffed was short ("El Chapo" measures 1.64 meters), White complexion, round face, short and curly hair He seemed to be 36 years old and have marked his documents. He was wearing khaki pants, yellow boots and a beige plastic jacket that would become the trademark of all the prisoners the new maximum security prison from Almoloya de Juárez, a few kilometers from Toluca, capital of the State of Mexico.

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Police escort with balaclava and armed up to the teeth, "El Chapo" He was instructed on the stage to be photographed and recorded on video. The journalists asked him questions of all kinds: his links with Sinaloa's cartel, his responsibility for the death of Cardinal Posadas or his confrontation with Arellano Felix.

He always responded in the same way: "I am a farmer who grows corn and beans."

Then the leaks came, urban legends, wars without neighborhood, the dead and more dead, the aura of the myth of the underworld that could never be found. And acquired its tragic international stature, much more than its 164 centimeters in height. And the end of his career: a trial in the "gabacho" as Mexicans like to call the United States.

The jury found him guilty of all charges and the "Chapo" will spend the rest of his days in a high security prison in Colorado, which, according to experts, It's worse than hell.

You will miss Almoloya's beige coat, discussions with other detainees and the possibility (still latent in Mexico) to buy your freedom, but some say that there are not two without three.