NEW YORK _ A pilot who ran multimillion-dollar drug shipments for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman testified under intense security at the Mexican drug lord's trial on Monday.
Miguel Angel Martinez described in colorful detail how the Sinaloa cartel kingpin built his empire from 20 employees and high-risk air shipments in the mid-1980s to a virtual "corporation" with 200 staffers trafficking tons of cocaine by Zodiac boats and paying millions in bribes to top officials.
Speaking to jurors in federal court in Brooklyn, Martinez said the cartel at one point was transporting up to 800 tons of cocaine a night between Colombia and Mexico using 10 different planes.
Guzman later switched to a more secure fleet of boats, he said.
This form of trafficking usually went off without a hitch, though one of Guzman's captains was transporting a haul worth $107 million when a massive storm hit, he told jurors.
"One of the (biggest) hurricanes that ever formed in the Pacific turned the boat," he said. "We never heard from them again."
He said Guzman was "very worried" and sent four jets in search of the lost boat, which was never found.
Martinez also described the astronomical bribes Guzman allegedly paid to Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, the former chief of police in Mexico City who was assassinated in 2003.
"That was his friend," Martinez testified. "He was sent, on about two or three occasions, about $10 million each time."
The money was sent on Guzman's jets, and once paid, Calderoni would offer intel and let the cartel operate in peace, he said.
Martinez was an expected witness, but prosecutors kept the timing of his testimony a closely guarded secret as a security precaution. The judge also ordered the courtroom sketch artist to refrain from drawing any distinguishing features on his face.
Even Guzman's wife Emma Coronel was ordered to take another trip through the courtroom security after U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan said she was caught using a banned cellphone in the courtroom.
Cogan said he was told "there's video in the court of her having a cellphone she's not supposed to have."
According to the defense, Martinez was a drug addict who shouldn't be trusted. Guzman's lawyers, meanwhile, claim Martinez was known for snorting $4,000 worth of cocaine a day and nearly lost his nose as a result.
On the witness stand, Martinez said Guzman first hired him to transport an eye-popping 1,470 kilos, or about 3,200 pounds, of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico around 1987.
Giving an insider's view of the drug industry's treacherous twists, Martinez said he was joined on that first major gig by a drowsy U.S. Navy pilot.
"He would fall asleep. I was worried and I would wake him up. He would say, 'Relax. I have the autopilot on,'" Martinez testified.
The pair ended up having to make a crash landing after discovering the tanks weren't properly re-fueled _ and the engines failed, he testified.
"Due to the pilot's experience, we landed on the (airstrip) without engines, without any gasoline," he said, adding that along with their lives, the cocaine "was saved."
He said one kilo of cocaine was worth about $2,000 in Colombia, up to $16,000 in Los Angeles, around $25,000 in Chicago and as much as $40,000 in New York City.
That means the staggering stash in his first shipment was valued as high as $58 million, depending on its distribution.
On the witness stand, Martinez said he worked "like a manager" for the Sinaloa cartel from 1986 until about 1998. "I worked for Mr. Joaquin Guzman," Martinez told the jury. "Only and exclusively Mr. Joaquin Guzman."
Martinez said he last saw Guzman in a Mexican jail in 1994.
He claimed he was sought out by Guzman's associates in the mid-1980s after they learned he was a pilot in the business of illegally smuggling electrical appliances to Mexico from the U.S.
Martinez said Guzman's cartel first hired him to assist with the smuggling of 3 tons of marijuana into Mexico from Colombia.
He traveled to Colombia and stayed there six months, but the plan ultimately fell through, he testified.
In January 1987, he flew back to Mexico and met with Guzman for the first time, he said.
"El senor Joaquin Guzman," he said. "He asked if I wanted to go back to Colombia ... he said it wasn't going to be marijuana this time, it was going to be cocaine. I said yes."
He and the Navy pilot delivered the drugs against the odds, and a short time later, Guzman took him along on a trip to Los Angeles, where they bought two planes valued at around $3 million.
The new aircraft were purchased "to move the drugs," Martinez told the jury. He said Guzman also met with some marijuana customers during the trip and planned a stop in Las Vegas.
"Mr. Guzman wanted to gamble," he said.
Martinez said he survived another near-fatal crash while he was flying with Guzman and his bodyguard. After that, Guzman decided he wanted him working in an office and not flying planes.
Martinez said he opened an office for the cartel in an upscale building in Mexico City, and he and Guzman worked there together.
"We pretended to be attorneys," he testified.
He said they became "great" friends, and in 1989, Guzman asked Martinez to be his son's godfather.
"I was glad," he said. "In this time, he represented _ well, he was my boss."
He said Guzman called him "El Gordo" _ the fat one.
He said Guzman told him he became a trafficker because "he was a very poor person who didn't have anything to eat."
"Since he was a little boy, he would plant marijuana right in front of his house ... and the poppy," Martinez testified.
Guzman, 61, has pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges involving money laundering, firearms and the manufacturing and distribution of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana.
The diminutive drug lord allegedly made $14 billion off his sprawling cartel, prosecutors claim.
He became a worldwide sensation when he burrowed through the shower floor of his maximum-security cell at a Mexican prison in 2015 and rode a custom motorcycle to freedom through a secret tunnel dug by his supporters.
