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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World

'El Chapo' trial: Notorious Mexican drug lord found guilty on 10 counts in US trial

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (Picture: AP)

Notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been found guilty of drug-trafficking at a trial in New York.

Jurors convicted Guzman, 61, on all 10 counts. The verdict could mean life in jail.

The Mexican was accused of being behind the Sinaloa drug cartel, which authorities said smuggled tonnes of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the US.

Guzman broke out of Mexican prisons twice before he was finally recaptured and extradited to the US. in 2017.

He is due to be sentenced on June 25.

Guzman, is escorted by marines as he is presented to the press in Mexico City in 2014 (AFP/Getty Images)

Federal prosecutors put on more than 50 witnesses over three months detailing how Guzman's cartel amassed billions of dollars importing drugs into the US.

The trial offered the public an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel, named for the state in northwestern Mexico where Guzman was born in a poor mountain village.

Witnesses detailed assassinations and political payoffs, and how drugs were smuggled using tanker trucks, railway carriages and even shipments of canned peppers.

Evidence showed drugs poured into the US through secret tunnels or hidden in tanker trucks and railway carriages passing through legitimate points of entry.

Members of Homeland Security Service patrol outside the US Federal Courthouse (AFP/Getty Images)

Guzman is known for two dramatic escapes he made from Mexican prisons and the "Robin Hood" image he cultivated among Sinaloa's poor.

Key associates testifed against Guzman, whose nicknames translates to "Shorty".

Among them were his former Sinaloa lieutenants, a computer encryption expert and a Colombian cocaine supplier who underwent extreme plastic surgery to disguise his appearance.

One of the trial's most memorable tales came from girlfriend Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, who testified she was in bed in a safe house with an on-the-run Guzman in 2014 when Mexican marines started breaking down his door.

She said Guzman led her to a trap door beneath a bathtub that opened up to a tunnel that allowed them to escape.

Asked what he was wearing, she replied: "He was naked. He took off running. He left us behind."

The defendant had previously escaped from jail by hiding in a laundry bin in 2001. He then got an escort from crooked police officers into Mexico City before retreating to one of his many mountainside hideaways.

In 2014, he pulled off another jail break, escaping through a mile-long lighted tunnel on a motorcycle on rails.

Even when Guzman was recaptured in 2016 before his extradition to the United States, he was plotting another escape, prosecutor Andrea Goldbarg said in closing arguments.

Reporting by agencies.

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