El Chapo trial - live updates: Joaquín Guzman joked about arming infant daughter with AK47 in texts to wife, court hears
The trial of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo“ Guzman continues in Brooklyn, New York, and is expected to last into early 2019.
This is the first time a major Mexican drug lord has been tried in a US court and pleaded not guilty. The trial has become increasingly tense in recent days, as Guzman’s attorney seeks to undermine testimonies from major drug traffickers.
Guzman, 61, faces a 17 count indictment that covers nearly three decades of alleged criminal activities. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Mr Rodriguez said he personally installed spyware on about 50 phones. The technician said he heard from associates of Guzman that their boss treated the technology "like his toy," often using it to hear what people said about him immediately after he called them.
Mr Rodriguez began cooperating with the FBI while still working for Guzman, allowing investigators to tap into the cartel's encrypted phone network. His testimony was accompanied by special security precautions, with sketch artists instructed not to draw his face.
Mr Rodriguez said he handled Guzman's requests to install spyware on about 50 "special phones" he wanted to track. The software allowed Guzman to monitor users' calls and texts, and even to turn on a phone's microphone and record at any time without the user's knowledge.
Guzman was so preoccupied with spying on his associates he had software installed on their phones to monitor their texts and conversations, a key prosecution witness testified this afternoon. It was an opening the FBI would later exploit.
Christian Rodriguez, a technician who said he worked for Guzman from 2008 to 2012 and set up a secure communication system for the cartel, took the stand in federal court in Brooklyn to testify.
The texts show to the court appeared to show Ms Cabanillas acted as a go-between in the drug business, helping to set up deals between Guzman and various other people, including one who used the name "War Princess" and another who went by a series of emoticons.
In a number of messages, the court was told that Guzman and Ms Coronel were discussing their twin daughters, Emmely "Mali" and Maria Joaquina "Kiki" Coronel, then about one and a half years old.
In one message, Guzman said: "Our Kiki is fearless... I'm going to give her an AK-47 so she can hang with me."
The texts appeared to show Guzman and Ms Coronel discussing the hazards of his life. In one message, Coronel said she was being watched by law enforcement, Guzman advised her to "live a normal life." In another, Ms Coronel assured her husband she had a gun.
After a raid on a house in the Mexican beach resort of Los Cabos that captured several of his associates, Guzman told Ms Coronel he escaped through a window with a few scratches, according to the texts.
Mr Marston explained U.S. authorities were able to obtain the messages by searching records collected by a spy software Guzman himself had ordered installed on phones
Prosecutors in federal court in Brooklyn played recordings of Guzman chatting with others about needing to buy ammunition for guns and bribing police officers.
In one 2011 call, Guzman could be heard scolding his chief enforcer for bragging about roughing up crooked cops who got in the way. He said in the future to "just reprimand them, don't beat them."
VICE reporter Keegan Hamilton said the calls played today were "innocuous." The recordings discussed a road being paved in El Chapo's hometown and one of his wife asking for money.
The FBI agent had to verify El Chapo's voice in the recordings. The court used a sample of El Chapo's voice recordings: one from his infamous Rolling Stone interview and another from a federal jail in Manhattan
Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, announced he introduced the El Chapo Act last week that would "reserve any amounts forfeited to the US gov as a result of criminal prosecution of "El Chapo," and other drug kingpins for border security assets and to build President Trump's steel border wall between the United States and Mexico.
The FBI undercover agent, posing as a gangster, met with El Chapo's IT guy and asked for help in making phone calls while evading government surveillance. The agent was able to launch a secret operation that allowed the FBI to crack into El Chapo's communications, and listen in on over 200 phone calls with the druglord and his associates.
