The revelations revealed during the trial of Chapo Guzmán

After a lengthy 12 – week trial, a jury today found guilty of several counts against him.

Joaquín Guzmán Loera

, the capo of the Mexican drug known as El Chapo. Guzmán has been prosecuted for 10 counts, including that of leading a criminal enterprise, importing and selling narcotics

United States

.

The trial allowed prosecutors to detail the internal functioning of the Sinaloa cartel under Chapo, offering a unique view of international drug trafficking.

Corruption in Mexico

During the trial, it was learned that several levels of the Mexican government were involved in bribes, including two presidents. Jeffrey Litchman, a lawyer for Chapo, in his plea for the opening of the trial, badured that presidents Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and

Enrique Peña Nieto

(2012-2018) received "hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes". A witness later stated that El Chapo had paid Enrique Peña Nieto 100 million US dollars in exchange for the drug trafficker's incommunicado detention.

Another witness said that the senior security officer of the president

Andrés Manuel López Obrador

He had accepted a multi-million dollar bribe from the Sinaloa cartel in 2005.

Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security, was accused of accepting two bags worth $ 3 million. And it was said that the Mexican Federal Police, called "our people" by a witness, protected the Chapo after

his first escape from prison

in 2001

Buried alive

Isaías Valdez Ríos, an ex-guardian of Guzmán Loera, was one of the most macabre testimonials. He described in detail the high level of violence of his leader with his own hands.

"They were like rag dolls, their bones were completely broken, they could not move and Joaquin was still beating them with a branch and his weapon," Valdez said on Jan. 24 about two "traitors" who had joined the cartel. in front of Los Zetas and then they were executed by Guzmán himself.

In addition, Valdez spoke of the execution of a third man with an even higher level of violence. "He burned with an iron on his back, his shirt stuck to his skin, he had burns from a lighter all over his body, his feet were burned."

After spending days in lockdowns, they took him to the cemetery with blindfolded eyes and, after further interrogation, Chapo shot him with his gun. The man was still out of breath when he was thrown into a well and buried alive, according to testimony from the ex-bodyguard.

Another witness said that Chapo regularly raped young people, favoring 13-year-olds, whom he considered "his vitamins". Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López, one of his victims, testified against him in court. It was believed that she was his ex-wife and she was sobbing at the bar by recounting her adventure with the Mexican capo. Just before the deliberations, evidence was published concerning these attacks, which were held by the jury because they were considered prejudicial.

Spying and paranoia

For several years, Chapo has invested a lot of money in spyware hardware to monitor all communications between its neighbors. Miguel Ángel Martínez, a collaborator, recalled that the boss had already told him: "The most important thing in this environment was to know what everyone thought of you, who you are, your friends, our enemies, your companions. "

For his part, Christian Rodriguez, a young Colombian computer expert, has developed a spyware system of the highest technology that he installed on the phones and computers of his wife, Emma Coronel, lovers and badociates of Guzmán Loera.

However, his obsession and paranoia turned against him when Rodriguez agreed to secretly cooperate with US authorities in 2009.

The prosecution case was essentially based on four different investigations of wiretaps. In addition to the intervention of the Christian Rodríguez system, prosecutors have also resorted to telephone tapping compiled by the Colombian and Dominican authorities, as well as at one of the national security investigations. The US government has collected more than one million text messages among the members of the cartel.

The international reach of Sinaloa cartel

Like any good deal, the Sinaloa cartel has become globalized, extending its activities beyond the border between

Mexico

and the United States to Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Belize, Honduras, Canada, Thailand, and China.

Since the beginning of his career, Chapo Guzmán has contacted cocaine suppliers

Colombia

get cheap cocaine. He negotiated cheaper offers with distributors promising to deliver cocaine more quickly, earning him the nickname El Rápido for his speed in channeling cocaine through tunnels under the border.

Prosecutors presented an audio recording in which El Chapo reportedly had a telephone conversation with a drug trafficker from

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)

.

During almost 12 minutes of recording, Guzmán Loera asked his counterpart to buy six tons of cocaine. "My nephew tells me that you have 6 tons and that if you are paid 2 and a half years, you put them in Guaya (Ecuador)," Chapo is heard.

His unidentified interlocutor replies, "I'm moving as long as, like us, 50% drop me off and I start right there."

Millions of cocaine lines

The witnesses unveiled throughout the trial the different methods used by Guzmán Loera to import the drug between Mexico and the United States: trains and fishing boats, helicopters and airplanes, semi-submersible tankers and oil tankers, shoe boxes and chilli cans. Although many more drugs were crossed than seized, the authorities managed to seize 16 tons of a merchant ship in Panama and 6 tons outside Ecuador.

The US Deputy Attorney, Adam Fels, said Chapo had sent "more than one cocaine line per person to the United States" in just four of his shipments. That equates to more than 328 million lines of cocaine, said the prosecutor, trying to determine for the jury the extent of the accused's activities in drug trafficking.

The hiding place behind plastic surgeries

Getting too much plastic surgery seems to be an unwritten rule in Narco's textbooks. The drug dealer Amado Carrillo Fuentes, nicknamed the Lord of Heaven, died under the knife of a surgeon and several witnesses claimed to have undergone numerous operations.

Tirso Martinez Sanchez, who participated in the formation of drug-filled cartels between Mexico and the United States, said he had several facial reconstruction operations to radically alter his appearance, stopping only in After having started bleeding during his third operation.

Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía, known as Chupeta, Colombian supplier of cocaine from El Chapo, has, during successive operations, altered jaw, cheekbones, eyes, mouth, ears and the nose.

Chupeta also tried to have his fingerprints removed, causing him a traffic problem; I always wore gloves on the stand. In the yard, her reddened skin looked like melted wax on her scalp.