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The high-security trial of the infamous Mexican drug dealer Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman began on Tuesday. A prosecutor explained to the jury that the man who had started in a small company selling marijuana in Mexico ruthlessly turned his decision into a bloody act. a smuggling operation that channeled cocaine and other drugs to northern New York.
US Attorney General Adam Fels told a jury in New York City that Guzman "sent killers to eliminate his competitors" and "waged wars against long-time partners … including his own cousins" .
Guzman, held in solitary confinement since his extradition to the United States early last year, pleaded not guilty to the charge of amassing a multibillion – dollar fortune that was carrying tons of cocaine and other drugs in a vast supply chain New York, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere north of the border.
If he is found guilty, he faces a life sentence.
Prosecutors said they would use thousands of documents, videos and recordings as evidence, including information about safe places for drug traffickers, to escape prison from Guzman in 2015 and the operation of keeping the order to resume it.
Fels told the jurors that Guzman had started modestly in the early 1970s selling marijuana in Mexico, while building his reputation by building tunnels across Mexico. border to carry marijuana and cocaine so quickly that it was no longer "El Chapo, the little one". Instead, he became known as "the fastest." Before his tunnels, it had taken weeks to get drugs to the United States.
Shortly after, Guzman was receiving 10 to 15 "cocaine-laden" planes from Colombia on landing strips in Mexico to be transported to cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, Fels said.
While his company used tunnels, trains, planes and ships, Guzman began to target his rivals in the early 1990s, resulting in bloody wars. In 1993, he escaped to Guatemala, but was captured and jailed in Mexico for eight years, where he continued to run his drug empire, Fels said.
The prosecutor talked about two dramatic prison escapes perpetrated by Guzman and said he planned for a third when he would be brought to the United States.
Fels said that Guzman had used part of his fortune to pay the Mexican army and police and to fund assault rifles, grenade launcher and explosives as part of an "attack." war after bloody war ".
More than a dozen cooperating witnesses are scheduled to appear, including some who have worked for Guzman's cartel for Sinaloa. Prosecutors say that they risk revenge by speaking up and that the court has taken steps to conceal their identity. US District Judge Brian Cogan prevented draughtsmen from the courtroom from drawing them.
Guzman's lawyers are expected to attack the credibility of witnesses by focusing on their criminal record, saying that some have an interest in lying to gain clemency in their own affairs.
Eduardo Balarezo, one of Guzman's lawyers, hinted that he was hoping to convince the jurors that Guzman was not in charge of the cartel but a lieutenant receiving orders from someone else. d & # 39; other.
"Now that the lawsuit is upon us, it's time to get up or shut up," said Balarezo.
Despite his small size and nickname which means "Shorty", Guzman was once a larger-than-life character in Mexico, who was compared to Al Capone and Robin Hood and was the subject of ballads called "narcocorridos".
Among the highlights of his story, he was known for his gold-plated AK-47, cocaine smuggling in jalapenos cans and airplane shipments, with secret landing lanes, as well as container ships and motorboats. fast and even underwater.
But Guzman is perhaps best known for escaping to Mexico, the first time in 2011 hiding at the bottom of a laundry bin. He escaped again in 2015 through a kilometer long tunnel dug into his prison cell by a shower in which he slipped before escaping on a motorcycle.
Guzman's second escape was a black eye for the Mexican government, an amplified embarrassment when actor Sean Penn was able to find him and interview him in one of his hiding in Mexico while he was on the run from the authorities.
The extradition of Guzman to New York has upset the drug world in Mexico.
The Mexican security analyst, Alejandro Hope, said that he had created "a kind of civil war within the Sinaloa cartel", which basically ended with the "death penalty". arresting internal rivals and allowed his sons to take control of what remains a "weakened" traffic but far to be completed operation.
Hope said he saw no sign that extradition from Guzman and his incarceration in the United States had a major impact on drug flows or routes.
"But symbolically, I think it's important – it's a little late in an era – there are only very few royal pivots of this size, of this size," he said. Hope. "We are actually leaving this era, the era of the pivot." Small gangs now dominate, he said.
Raul Benitez, security expert and professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said that Guzman's oversized myth was also blurred.
In Mexico, reports on the Guzman trial occupy a prominent place in the media, although some consider it to be ancient history.
"He is totally isolated, he can not approach anyone, his wife has not even been able to approach him, so he is offside," said Benitez, referring to a judge's order. prohibiting Guzman's wife from hugging her in the courtroom. during the trial.
The decision of his departure will be made by an anonymous jury composed of 12 men and women who will decide on the case. The trial is expected to last until next year.
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Peter Orsi's associate editor in Mexico contributed to the writing of this report.
