Until his trial began, much of the public perception of accused Mexican drug lord El Chapo, real name Joaquín Guzmán, had come from rumours and legend. But over the past three months, we have heard what the lead prosecutor, Andrea Goldberg, called “a mountain of evidence” against the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, including allegations of decades of murder, torture, bribery and corruption.
The stories from the trial have ranged from the horrifying to the downright bizarre; these are some of the most astonishing.
Live burial
Among the many violent exploits, Guzmán is allegedly responsible for are three murders which a former bodyguard, Isaías Valdez Ríos, said he saw Guzmán commit. Valdez Ríos told the court of two occasions in which he witnessed Guzmán torture and murder members of a rival drug cartel. In one case in 2006, he is said to have instructed his men to dig a hole for a man they had been holding prisoner before shooting him. The victim was thrown in the ground still gasping for air and buried alive.
Eavesdropping
Numerous text messages between Guzmán and his wife and mistresses were read aloud in court. Cristián Rodríguez, a former tech expert for the cartel, testified that Guzmán had instructed him to install tracking spyware on the women’s phones. Rodríguez said Guzmán would often turn on the microphones of his lovers’ phones in order to “to see what they would say about him”. It was this technology that allowed prosecutors to read many of Guzmán’s text messages when they might not have otherwise been able to.
Parenting
Among the texts read in court were conversations Guzmán had with his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, mother to his two twin daughters.
“Our Kiki is fearless,” he texted when the girls were six months old. “I’m going to give her an AK-47 so she can hang with me.”
Bribery
As the trial began in November, Guzmán’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, alleged that Mexican officials, including former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón, had received bribes to protect Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a rival drug lord.
Later in January, Alex Cifuentes, a former associate of Guzmán’s put a price tag on his own alleged bribery, saying he had paid $100m to Peña Nieto. Both politicians have denied the allegations, calling them false and defamatory.
The court also heard of a number of other officials, including the former army general Gilberto Toledano, who was alleged to have received regular payments of $100,000 to look the other way along drug shipping routes.
Lucky escapes
On one occasion Guzmán texted his wife shortly after a narrow escape from a villa in Cabo San Lucas in 2012.
“I had to run out at 3 in the afternoon,” he wrote. “I’ve been scratched up, but fine. Thank God … I saw them pounding on the door next door, but I was able to jump out.”
“Oh, love. That’s horrible,” she responded. “I’ll be watching the news to see what they say, love.”
Guzmán’s penchant for escape was also joked about in court when the lights briefly went out in the courtroom, leaving everyone in the pitch darkness. When the lights came back on, someone was heard to shout: “He’s gone!” Guzmán hadn’t moved, but according to Keegan Hamilton of Vice News: “Everybody laughed, except maybe the US Marshals.”
Moustache dye
After the raid, Guzmán was said to have left all manner of incriminating evidence behind in the villa, including weapons, but in a text to his wife, he shared with her a list of items he really needed her to go out and buy for him, including moustache dye and a new pair of Nikes.
His attorney argued that the evidence should not be admitted, saying there was no way of knowing if the shoes were actually his. “The jury has no way of knowing. If they don’t fit, what?” Eduardo Balarezo asked.
The line of argument led to a moment of levity at the trial with the witness, former FBI agent Jose Moreno, quipping: “What is this? The OJ trial?”
“You must acquit,” a heckler in the gallery shouted.
Animal Lover
The jury was told of a lengthy list of homes, yachts and planes alleged to belong to Guzmán as well as a diamond-encrusted pistol. One detail in particular that stood out was a zoo Guzmán was said to have in Guadalajara, as Miguel Ángel Martínez, an associate, explained.
“It was a very nice ranch with a house, pool, tennis courts, and he built a zoo.”
The zoo was home to tigers, lions and deer, he said. Guzmán would ride around “in a little train”, he said.
Star power
In late January the Mexican actor Alejandro Edda, who plays Guzmán in the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico, arrived in court to observe the trial. The visit apparently pleased the real Guzmán, who reportedly grinned when he saw Edda in the courtroom. His attorney agreed he “seemed happy” to see Edda.
Edda scribbled notes during testimonies and borrowed a reporter’s binoculars at one point to get a closer look at the man whose life he inhabits onscreen.
“I think he’s guilty. There are many, many horrendous things that he did,” Edda said. “The sad part is I know he’s not the only one. I know that not only the Sinaloan guys are the bad guys, there are many bad guys around us.”