The “lord of the tunnels” of “Chapo” Guzmán sentenced to 10 years in prison in the United States

José Sanchez Villalobos, architect of narcotunnels cross-border for Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Chapo, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Southern District Court of California.

Known as the Lord of the Tunnels, this subject was extradited from Mexico a United States in January 2020, after spending eight years behind bars.

After pleading guilty last December, Sánchez Villalobos was only awaiting a sentence, which was minimal for drug distribution charges.

He agreed to have planned, financed and supervised the construction of several tunnels between the US and Mexico border, both Mexicali and Tijuana, Baja California, for drug trafficking.

“I promise I won’t do anything illegal anymore, because the easiest way to get money is usually the wrong way to get it,” Sánchez Villalobos said in Spanish apologizing to the Court, according to local media.

Yes paid nine and a half Over time, he was locked in a Mexican prison and another in San Diego, California, for which he would be released in late 2021 or early 2022.

Sanchez Villalobos was responsible for the construction of the famous Narcotunnels of the Sinaloa Cartel, considered one of the most sophisticated because they have geolocalisers (GPS) with manual control and remote control.

Their nicknames were: Quirino, Quinino, Quirītēs, Garañon, the Cat, First, the Viejo Yes Ruffled. With those nicknames, it made it difficult for US authorities to identify him.

The gangways he built were characterized by starting with houses or warehouses with large patios so that the removed earth could be piled on the ground itself. The work used Swedish mobile rigs with a strong draft costing a million dollars. In addition, he used birds to measure the oxygenation levels of the buildings.

The design considered as a depth of more than 10 meters to avoid noise to the outside and shoring of walls, in addition to having lighting Yes ventilation. At the mouths of the tunnels, he made a wooden shoring frame which was used to trace rails in order to correctly guide the drilling machine.

The relevance of this underground engineering work to the operations of the Sinaloa cartel was Vital importance for the development of the criminal organization, since in less than a week it reached transfer the drug, which earned him the nickname of Quick then the head of the organization, the Chapo Guzman.

the Lord of the Tunnels was detained in Zapopan, Jalisco, January 15, 2012 by members of the Secretariat of National Defense. The representatives of the army They had been tracking him at least since November 2011 following the preliminary investigation UEIORPIFAM / 308/2011, after the military seized 15 million 350 thousand dollars in Tijuana.

Ministerial elements determined that the money was linked to illicit operations of José Sanchez Villalobos, drug trafficking supervisor since Jalisco up to Baja california for him Sinaloa Cartel. This subject called himself Óscar González Hernández to escape the authorities.

Nine months after his arrest, on October 13, 2012, the Southern District of California charged him with 13 drug-related charges found on November 25, 2010 and November 29, 2011 near the Mexican and US border.

Located as a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel, Sánchez Villalobos was the one who operated and built two passages of Otay MesaIn one of them 16 thousand 34 kilos of marijuana were seized and in another 23 thousand 171 kg of the same drug.

He figured out who could smuggle drugs in the narcotunnels, how much would be carried, and the fees to use his engineering work.

A memorandum noted that Lord of the Tunnels he was born in Atequiza, Jalisco, and worked since his childhood on the farm of his family made up of 10 siblings.

At the age of 20 he crossed the border and came to Angels, where he worked for the next two decades. We don’t know how she enlisted him Sinaloa Cartel, because in 2005 he returned to Guadalajara.

He is currently 58 years old and although he is a legal resident of the United States, there is a possibility that he will be returned to Mexico when he has served his sentence. According to Guadalupe Valencia, his lawyer, José Sánchez Villalobos plans to return to the capital of Jalisco and undergo surgery because faces serious health problems.

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