USA USA: "Chapo" Guzman convicted of large-scale drug trafficking

The most famous drug trafficker in Mexico, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, was convicted today of leading a contraband operation on an industrial scale narcotics in the United States, after a three month trial in New York, stories of murders, bribes to politicians and even a naked escape through a tunnel.

After six days of deliberations, a jury found guilty "El Chapo", 61 years oldof the ten counts against him so that he could be sentenced to life imprisonment in a maximum security prison United States specially selected for frustrating another leak like the two who committed Guzmán in his native Mexico.

While the judge read the verdict, Guzmán fixed the jury.

When the members of the court left the room, "El Chapo", dressed in a blue suit and a black tieHe leaned back in his chair and turned to look for his wife, who made him a subtle gesture with thumbs up, reported CNN.

Judge Brian Cogan praised the meticulous attention of the jury to all the details of the complex case and stated that his performance made him "very proud to be American".

Cogan now has the mission to establish the sentence of what has been the most media and most important case of drug trafficking in the United StatesWhy convened the court for next June 25.

The four men and eight women from the jury, reserved identities, had to examine what was described as an avalanche of evidence, collected since the late 80s, that the cartel of Guzman in Sinaloa had won billions of dollars of smuggling more than 200 tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana.

The evidence presented showed that the drug was introduced to the United States by secret tunnelsin tank trucks concealed under private wagons or in train wagons crossed by authorized points, so as to indicate that a frontier wall would not constitute a major obstacle to drug trafficking.

The trial included the testimony of repentants and other witnessesamong them, former lieutenants of Guzmán in the Sinaloa cartel and a Colombian cocaine trafficker who has undergone several aesthetic interventions to hide his appearance.

Witnesses they described the horrible violence that Guzmán was unleashing on his rivals and the paranoia of a man who lived in a permanent flight. The jury heard testimony about the electronic devices with which the defendant spied on his wife and her lovers.

Guzmán was extradited to the United States in 2017, two days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, after escaping from two maximum security prisons in Mexico.

The defense argued that Guzman's role in the operations of the Sinaloa cartel was exaggerated by repentant witnesses calling for a reduction of sentences for their crimes.

In his final declaration, Attorney Jeffrey Lichtman called the case "fancy" and urged the jury not to believe the repentant, who said "lie, steal, cheat, traffic in drugs and kill people" as a way of life.

The jury heard before its verdict 56 testimonies, including 14 repentants or "cooperants" of the American government, like Ramírez Abadía, undoubtedly the most shocking, both for his face disfigured by plastic surgeries for not being recognized and for the coldness with which he spoke of the murders.

Another witness, Alex Cifuentes, caused a tumult by claiming that the former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto received 100 million dollars from Guzmán as a bribe.

Peña Nieto denied it, but the accusation continues with a whole scheme bribes to politicians, military, police and prosecutors, no one of whom appears to have been exempted.

In one of the most memorable testimonies, Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López, one of the wives of "El Chapo", said that he was in bed in a house with Guzmán in 2014 when Mexican marines burst into the house.

Guzmán, bad, He led her to a hidden secret door under a bath that opened in turn to a tunnel through which they escaped.

The defendant had already escaped from prison Hidden in a dirty laundry car in 2001. In 2014, he escaped again aboard a motorcycle that he crossed into a tunnel.

Telam Agency.