Joaquin Guzman

Early life

Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera was born into a poor family in the rural community of La Tuna, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico. Sources disagree on the date of his birth, with some stating he was born on 25 December 1954, while others report he was born on 4 April 1957. His parents were Emilio Guzman Bustillos and Maria Consuelo Loera Perez. His paternal grandparents were Juan Guzman and Otilia Bustillos, and his maternal grandparents were Ovidio Loera Cobret and Pomposa Perez Uriarte. For many generations, his family lived and died at La Tuna. His father was officially a cattle rancher, as were most in the area where Guzman grew up; according to some sources, however, he may have possibly also been a gomero, a Sinaloan word for opium poppy farmer. Guzman has two younger sisters, Armida and Bernarda, and four younger brothers: Miguel Angel, Aureliano, Arturo and Emilio. He had three unnamed older brothers who reportedly died of natural causes when he was very young.

Few details are known of Guzman's upbringing. As a child, Guzman sold oranges, and dropped out of school in third grade to work with his father. Guzman was regularly beaten and sometimes fled to his maternal grandmother's house to escape such treatment. However, when he was home, Guzman stood up to his father to protect his younger siblings from being beaten. It is possible that Guzman incurred his father’s wrath for trying to stop him from beating them. His mother, however, was the "foundation of [his] emotional support." As the nearest school to his home was about 60 mi (100 km) away, Guzman was taught by traveling teachers during his early years, just like the rest of his brothers. The teachers stayed for a few months before moving to other areas. With few opportunities for employment in his hometown, he turned to the cultivation of opium poppy, a common practice among local residents. During harvest season, Guzman and his brothers hiked the hills of Badiraguato to cut the bud of the poppy. Once the plant was stacked in kilos, his father sold the harvest to other suppliers in Culiacan and Guamuchil. He sold marijuana at commercial centers near the area while accompanied by Guzman. His father spent most of the profits on liquor and women and often returned home with no money. Tired of his mismanagement, Guzman, at the age of 15, cultivated his own marijuana plantation with four distant cousins (Arturo, Alfredo, Carlos, and Hector), who lived nearby. With his first marijuana productions, Guzman supported his family financially.

When he was a teenager, however, his father kicked him out of his house, and he went to live with his grandfather. It was during his adolescence that Guzman earned the nickname El Chapo, Mexican slang for "Shorty", for his 1.68 m (5 ft., 6 in.) stature and stocky physical appearance. Though most people in Badiraguato worked in the poppy fields of the Sierra Madre Occidental throughout most of their lives, Guzman left his hometown in search of greater opportunities; through his uncle Pedro Aviles Perez, one of the pioneers of Mexican drug trafficking, he left Badiraguato in his 20s and joined organized crime.

Initial stages in organized crime

During the 1980s, the leading crime syndicate in Mexico was the Guadalajara Cartel, which was headed by Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (alias "El Padrino" ["the Godfather"]), Rafael Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo (alias "Don Neto"), Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno (alias "El Azul" ["the Blue One"]) and others. In the 1970s, Guzman first worked for the drug lord Hector "El Guero" Palma by transporting drugs and overseeing their shipments from the Sierra Madre region to urban areas near the U.S.-Mexico border by aircraft. Since his initial steps in organized crime, Guzman was ambitious and regularly pressed on his superiors to allow him to increase the share of narcotics that were smuggled across the border. The drug lord also favored a pragmatic and serious approach when doing business; if any of his drug shipments were not on time, Guzman would simply kill the smuggler himself by shooting him in the head. Those around him learned that cheating him or going with other competitors—even if they offered better prices—was inconvenient. The leaders of the Guadalajara Cartel liked Guzman's business acumen, and in the early 1980s, they introduced him to Felix Gallardo, one of the major drug lords in Mexico at that time. Guzman first worked as a chauffeur for Felix Gallardo before he put him in charge of logistics, where Guzman coordinated drug shipments from Colombia to Mexico by land, air, and sea. Palma, on the other hand, made sure the deliveries arrived to consumers in the United States. Guzman soon earned enough standing and began working for Felix Gallardo directly.

Throughout most of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Mexican drug traffickers were middlemen for the Colombian drug trafficking groups, and would simply move the drugs through the U.S.-Mexico border and receive a fee for each kilogram. Mexico, however, remained a secondary route for the Colombians, given that most of the drugs trafficked by their cartels were smuggled through the Caribbean and the Florida corridor. Felix Gallardo was the leading drug baron in Mexico and friend of Juan Ramon Matta-Ballesteros, but his operations were still limited by his counterparts in South America. In the mid-1980s, however, the U.S. government increased law enforcement surveillance and put pressure on the Medellin and Cali Cartels by effectively reducing the drug trafficking operations in the Caribbean corridor. Realizing it was more profitable to hand over the operations to their Mexican counterparts, the Colombian cartels gave Felix Gallardo more control over their drug shipments. This power shift gave the Mexican organized crime groups more leverage over their Central American and South American counterparts. During the 1980s, however, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was conducting undercover groundwork in Mexico, where several of its agents worked as informants.

One DEA agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar, was working as an informant and grew close to many top drug barons, including Felix Gallardo. In November 1984, the Mexican military—acting on the intelligence information provided by Camarena—raided a large marijuana plantation owned by the Guadalajara Cartel and known as "Rancho Bufalo." Angered by the suspected betrayal, Felix Gallardo and his men sought revenge by kidnapping, torturing, and killing the DEA agent in February 1985. Guzman's life changed that day, according to federal agents of the DEA; the drug lord took advantage of the internal crisis to gain ground within the cartel and take over more drug trafficking operations. The death of Camarena outraged Washington, and Mexico responded by carrying out a massive manhunt to arrest those involved in the incident. In 1989, Felix Gallardo was arrested; while in prison and through a number of envoys, the drug lord called for a summit in Acapulco, Guerrero. In the conclave, Guzman and others discussed the future of Mexico's drug trafficking and agreed to divide the territories previously owned by the Guadalajara Cartel. The Arellano Felix brothers formed the Tijuana Cartel, which controlled the Tijuana corridor and parts of Baja California; in Chihuahua state, a group controlled by Carrillo Fuentes family formed the Juarez Cartel; and the remaining faction left to Sinaloa and the Pacific Coast and formed the Sinaloa Cartel under the traffickers Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, Palma, and Guzman. Guzman was specifically in charge of the drug corridors of Tecate, Baja California, and Mexicali and San Luis Rio Colorado, two border crossings that connect the states of Sonora and Baja California with the U.S. states of Arizona and California.

When Felix Gallardo was arrested, Guzman reportedly lived in Guadalajara, Jalisco for some time. One of his other centers of operation, however, was in the border city of Agua Prieta, Sonora, where he coordinated drug trafficking activities more closely. The drug lord had dozens of properties in various parts of the country. People he trusted purchased the properties for him and registered them under false names. Most of them were located in residential neighborhoods and served as stash houses for drugs, weapons, and cash. Guzman also owned several ranches across Mexico, but most of them were located in the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora, where locals working for the drug lord grew opium and marijuana. The first time Guzman was detected by U.S. authorities for his involvement in organized crime was in 1987, when several protected witnesses testified in a U.S. court that the drug lord was in fact heading the Sinaloa Cartel. An indictment issued in the state of Arizona alleged that Guzman had coordinated the shipment of 4,600 pounds (roughly 2 085 kg) of cannabis and 10,504 pounds (roughly 4 765 kg) of cocaine from 19 October 1987 to 18 May 1990, and had received roughly US$1.5 million in drug proceeds that were shipped back to his home state. Another indictment alleged that Guzman earned US$100,000 for trafficking 35 tons (roughly 31.8 t) of cocaine and an unspecified amount of marijuana in a period of three years. In the border areas between Tecate and San Luis Rio Colorado, Guzman ordered his men to traffic most of the drugs overland, but also through a few aircraft. By using the so-called piecemeal strategy, in which traffickers kept drug quantities relatively low, risks were reduced. The drug lord also pioneered the use of sophisticated underground tunnels to move drugs across the border and into the United States. Aside from pioneering the tunnels, Palma and Guzman packed cocaine into chili pepper cans under the brand Comadre before they were shipped to the U.S. by train. In return, the drug lords were paid through large suitcases filled with millions of dollars in cash. These suitcases were flown from the U.S. to Mexico City, where corrupt customs agents at the airport made sure the deliveries were not inspected. Large sums of that money were reportedly used as bribes for members of the Attorney General's Office.

Conflict with the Tijuana Cartel: 1989–1993

When Felix Gallardo was arrested, the Tijuana corridor was handed over to the Arellano Felix brothers, Jesus Labra Aviles (alias "El Chuy"), and Javier Caro Payan (alias "El Doctor"), cousin of the former Guadalajara Cartel leader Rafael Caro Quintero. In fears of a coup, however, Caro Payan fled to Canada and was later arrested. Guzman and the rest of the Sinaloa Cartel leaders consequently grew angry at the Arellano Felix clan about this. In 1989, Guzman sent Armando Lopez (alias "El Rayo"), one of his most trusted men, to speak with the Arellano Felix clan in Tijuana. Before he had a chance to speak face-to-face with them, Lopez was killed by Ramon Arellano Felix. The corpse was disposed in the outskirts of the city and the Tijuana Cartel ordered a hit on the remaining members of the Lopez family to prevent future reprisals. That same year, the Arellano Felix brothers sent the Venezuelan drug trafficker Enrique Rafael Clavel Moreno to infiltrate Palma's family and seduce his wife Guadalupe Leija Serrano. After convincing her to withdraw US$7 million from one of Palma's bank accounts in San Diego, California, Clavel beheaded her and sent her head to Palma in a box. It was known as the first beheading linked to the drug trade in Mexico. Two weeks later, Clavel killed Palma's children, Hector (aged 5) and Nataly (aged 4), by throwing them off a bridge in Venezuela. Palma retaliated by sending his men to kill Clavel while he was in prison. In 1991, Ramon killed another Sinaloa Cartel associate, Rigoberto Campos Salcido (alias "El Rigo"), prompting bigger conflicts with Guzman. In early 1992, a Tijuana Cartel-affiliated and San Diego-based gang known as Calle Treinta kidnapped six of Guzman’s men in Tijuana, tortured them to attain information, and then shot them execution-style in the backs of their heads. Their bodies were dumped on the outskirts of the city. Shortly after the attack, a car bomb exploded outside one of Guzman’s properties in Culiacan. No injuries were reported, but the drug lord became fully aware of the intended message.

Guzman and Palma struck back against the Arellano Felix brothers (Tijuana Cartel) with nine killings on 3 September 1992 in Iguala; among the dead were lawyers and family members of Felix Gallardo, who was also believed to have orchestrated the attack against Palma's family. Mexico's Attorney General formed a special unit to look into the killings, but the investigation was called off after the unit found that Guzman had paid off some of the top police officials in Mexico with $10 million, according to police reports and confessions of former police officers. In November 1992, gunmen of Arellano Felix attempted to kill Guzman as he was traveling in a vehicle through the streets of Guadalajara. Ramon and at least four of his henchmen shot at the moving vehicle with AK-47 assault rifles, but the drug lord managed to escape unharmed. The attack forced Guzman to leave Guadalajara and live under a false name under fears of future attacks. He and Palma, however, responded to the assassination attempt in a similar fashion; several days later, on 8 November 1992, a large commando of the Sinaloa Cartel posing as policemen stormed the Christine discotheque in Puerto Vallarta, spotted Ramon and Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, and opened fire at them. The shooting lasted for at least eight minutes, and more than 1,000 rounds were fired by both Guzman's and Arellano Felix's gunmen. Six people were killed in the shootout, but the Arellano Felix brothers were in the restroom when the raid started and reportedly escaped through an air-conditioning duct before leaving the scene in one of their vehicles. On 9 and 10 December 1992, four alleged associates of Felix Gallardo were killed. The antagonism between Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel and the Arellano Felix clan left several more dead and was accompanied by violent acts in the states of Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Durango, Jalisco, Guerrero, Michoacan and Oaxaca.

The war between both groups continued for six more months, yet none of their respective leaders was killed. In mid-1993, the Arellano Felix clan sent their top gunmen on a final mission to kill Guzman in Guadalajara, where he moved around frequently to avoid any possible attacks. Having no success, the Tijuana Cartel hitmen decided to return to Baja California on 24 May 1993. As Francisco Javier was at the Guadalajara International Airport booking his flight to Tijuana, informant tips notified him that Guzman was at the airport parking lot awaiting a flight to Puerto Vallarta. Having spotted the white Mercury Grand Marquis car where Guzman was thought to be hiding, about 20 gunmen of the Tijuana Cartel descended from three Jeep-like vehicles and opened fire at around 4:10 p.m. However, the drug lord was inside a green Buick sedan a short distance from the target. Inside the Mercury Grand Marquis was the Cardinal and Archbishop of Guadalajara Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who died at the scene from fourteen gunshot wounds. Six other people, including the cardinal's chauffeur, were caught in the crossfire and killed. Amidst the shootout and confusion, Guzman escaped in a taxi and headed to one of his safe houses in Bugambilias, a neighborhood 20 minutes away from the airport. News of the death of the cardinal quickly circulated across Mexico and the rest of the world.

Exodus and arrest: 1993

The night the cardinal was killed, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari flew to Guadalajara and condemned the attack, stating it was "a criminal act" that targeted innocent civilians, but he did not give any indications of the involvement of organized crime. The death of such a high-profile religious figure like Posadas Ocampo outraged the Mexican public, the Catholic Church, and many politicians. The government responded by carrying out a massive manhunt to arrest the people involved in the shootout, and offered about US$5 million bounties for each of them. Pictures of Guzman's face, previously unknown to the public, started to appear in newspapers and television programs across Mexico. Fearing his capture, Guzman fled Guadalajara and hid in Tonala, Jalisco, where he reportedly owned a ranch. The drug lord then fled to Mexico City and stayed at a hotel for about ten days. He met with one of his associates in an unknown location and handed him US$200 million to provide for his family in case of his absence. He gave that same amount to another of his employees to make sure the Sinaloa Cartel ran its day-to-day activities smoothly in case he was gone for some time.

After obtaining a passport with the fake name of Jorge Ramos Perez, Guzman was transported to the southern state of Chiapas by one of his trusted associates before leaving the country and settling in Guatemala on 4 June 1993. His plan was to move across Guatemala with his girlfriend Maria del Rocio del Villar Becerra and several of his bodyguards and settle in El Salvador. During his travel, Mexican and Guatemalan authorities had the drug lord on their radar. Guzman had bribed a Guatemalan military official with US$1.2 million in order to hide south of the Mexican border. The unnamed official, however, was working as an infiltrated informant and was passing down information about Guzman's whereabouts to law enforcement.

On 9 June 1993, Guzman was arrested by the Guatemalan Army at a hotel near Tapachula, close to the Guatemala–Mexico border. He was extradited back to Mexico two days later aboard a military airplane. Guzman was flown from Guatemala to the airport in Toluca, where he was immediately taken to the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 (often referred to simply as "La Palma" or "Altiplano"), a maximum-security prison in Almoloya de Juarez, State of Mexico.

Drug empire

Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel, at the time of his arrest, was the wealthiest and most powerful of Mexico's drug cartels. It smuggles multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia through Mexico to the United States by air, sea and road, and has distribution cells throughout the U.S. The organization has also been involved in the production, smuggling and distribution of Mexican methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin from Southeast Asia.

When Palma was arrested by the Mexican Army on 23 June 1995, Guzman took leadership of the cartel. Palma was later extradited to the United States, where he is in prison on charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy.

After Guzman's prison escape nearly a decade after his initial arrest, he and close associate Ismael Zambada Garcia became Mexico's undisputed top drug kingpins after the 2003 arrest of their rival Osiel Cardenas of the Gulf Cartel. Until Guzman's arrest in 2014, he was considered the "most powerful drug trafficker in the world" by the United States Department of the Treasury. Guzman also had another close associate, his trusted friend Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel Villarreal.

His drug empire made him a billionaire, and he was ranked as the 10^th richest man in Mexico and 1,140th in the world in 2011, with a net worth of roughly US$1 billion. To assist his drug trafficking, the Sinaloa Cartel also built a shipping and transport empire. Guzman has been referred to as the "biggest druglord of all time", and the U.S. DEA considered him "the godfather of the drug world" and strongly estimates he surpassed the influence and reach of Pablo Escobar. In 2013, the Chicago Crime Commission named Guzman "Public Enemy Number One" for the influence of his criminal network in Chicago (there is no evidence that Guzman has ever been in that city, however.) The last person to receive such notoriety was Al Capone in 1930.

At the time of his 2014 arrest, Guzman imported more drugs into the United States than anyone else. He took advantage of the power vacuum created by crackdowns on cartels in Colombia, gaining business and market share there as Colombia's own cartels were decimated. He took similar advantage of the situation when his rival cartels were brought down by an intense crackdown from the Mexican government, but the Sinaloa gang emerged largely unscathed.

Methamphetamine

After the fall of the Amezcua brothers – founders of the Colima Cartel – in 1999 on methamphetamine trafficking charges, there was a demand for leadership throughout Mexico to coordinate methamphetamine shipments north. Guzman saw an opportunity and seized it. Easily arranging precursor shipments, Guzman and Ismael Zambada Garcia ("El Mayo")("bodya") made use of their previous contacts on Mexico's Pacific coast. Importantly, for the first time, the Colombians would not have to be paid – they simply joined methamphetamine with cocaine shipments. This fact meant no additional money was needed for planes, pilots, boats and bribes; they used the existing infrastructure to pipeline the new product.

Until this point, the Sinaloa Cartel had been a joint venture between Guzman and Ismael Zambada Garcia; the methamphetamine business would be Guzman's alone. He cultivated his own ties to China, Thailand and India to import the necessary precursor chemicals. Throughout the mountains of the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Jalisco, Michoacan and Nayarit, Guzman constructed large methamphetamine laboratories and rapidly expanded his organization.

His habit of moving from place to place allowed him to nurture contacts throughout the country. He was now operating in 17 of 31 Mexican states. With his business expanding, he placed his trusted friend Ignacio Coronel Villarreal in charge of methamphetamine production; this way Guzman could continue being the boss of bosses. Coronel Villarreal proved so reliable in the Guzman business that he became known as the "Crystal King".

First arrest and escape: 1993–2001

Guzman was captured in Guatemala on 9 June 1993, extradited to Mexico and sentenced to 20 years, nine months in prison on charges of drug trafficking, criminal association and bribery. He was jailed at Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum-security prison. On 22 November 1995, he was transferred to the maximum security prison Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation No. 2 (also known as "Puente Grande") in Jalisco, after being convicted of three crimes: possession of firearms, drug trafficking and the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo (the charge would later be dismissed by another judge). He had been tried and sentenced inside the federal prison on the outskirts of Almoloya de Juarez, Mexico State.

While he was in prison, Guzman's drug empire and cartel continued to operate unabated, run by his brother, Arturo Guzman Loera, known as El Pollo, with Guzman himself still considered a major international drug trafficker by Mexico and the U.S. even while he was behind bars. Associates brought him suitcases of cash to bribe prison workers and allow the drug lord to maintain his opulent lifestyle even in prison, with prison guards acting like his servants. He met his longtime mistress and later Sinaloa associate, former police officer Zulema Hernandez, while in prison, where she was serving time for armed robbery. Hernandez later controlled Sinaloa's expansion into Mexico City, but her body was found in a trunk, carved with multiple Zs, signifying Los Zetas, Sinaloa's archrivals.

While still in prison in Mexico, Guzman was indicted in San Diego on U.S. charges of money laundering and importing tons of cocaine into California, along with his Sinaloa attorney Humberto Loya-Castro, or Licenciado Perez ("Lawyer Perez"), who was charged with bribing Mexican officials on Sinaloa's behalf and making sure that any cartel members arrested were released from custody. After a ruling by the Supreme Court of Mexico made extradition between Mexico and the United States easier, Guzman bribed guards to aid his escape. On 19 January 2001, Francisco "El Chito" Camberos Rivera, a prison guard, opened Guzman's electronically operated cell door, and Guzman got in a laundry cart that maintenance worker Javier Camberos rolled through several doors and eventually out the front door. He was then transported in the trunk of a car driven by Camberos out of the town. At a gas station, Camberos went inside, but when he came back, Guzman was gone on foot into the night. According to officials, 78 people have been implicated in his escape plan. Camberos is in prison for his assistance in the escape.

The police say Guzman carefully masterminded his escape plan, wielding influence over almost everyone in the prison, including the facility's director, who is now in prison for aiding in the escape. One prison guard who came forward to report the situation at the prison was found dead years later, presumed to be killed by Guzman. Guzman allegedly had the prison guards on his payroll, smuggled contraband into the prison and received preferential treatment from the staff. In addition to the prison-employee accomplices, police in Jalisco were paid off to ensure he had at least 24 hours to get out of the state and stay ahead of the military manhunt. The story told to the guards being bribed not to search the laundry cart was that Guzman was smuggling gold, ostensibly extracted from rock at the inmate workshop, out of the prison. The escape allegedly cost Guzman $2.5 million.

Mexican Cartel Wars

Since his escape from prison, Guzman had been wanting to take over the Ciudad Juarez crossing points, which were under the control of the Carrillo Fuentes family of the Juarez Cartel. Despite a high degree of mistrust between the two organizations, the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels had an alliance at the time. Guzman convened a meeting in Monterrey with Ismael Zambada Garcia ("El Mayo"), Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno ("El Azul") and Arturo Beltran Leyva and they discussed killing Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, who was in charge of the Juarez Cartel. On 11 September 2004, Rodolfo, his wife and two young children were visiting a Culiacan shopping mall. While leaving the mall, escorted by police commander Pedro Perez Lopez, the family was ambushed by members of Los Negros, assassins for the Sinaloa Cartel. Rodolfo and his wife were killed; the policeman survived.

This now meant the plaza would no longer be controlled only by the Carrillo Fuentes family. Instead, the city found itself as the front line in the Mexican Drug War and would see homicides skyrocket as rival cartels fought for control. With this act, Guzman was the first to break the nonaggression "pact" the major cartels had agreed to, setting in motion the fighting between cartels for drug routes that has claimed more than 50,000 lives since December 2006.

When Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006, he announced a crackdown on cartels by the Mexican military to stem the increasing violence. After four years, the additional efforts had not slowed the flow of drugs or the killings tied to the drug war. Of the 53,000 arrests made as of 2010, only 1,000 involved associates of the Sinaloa Cartel, which led to suspicions that Calderon was intentionally allowing Sinaloa to win the drug war, a charge Calderon denied in advertisements in Mexican newspapers, pointing to his administration's killing of top Sinaloa deputy "Nacho" Coronel as evidence. Sinaloa's rival cartels saw their leaders killed and syndicates dismantled by the crackdown, but the Sinaloa gang was relatively unaffected and took over the rival gangs' territories, including the coveted Ciudad Juarez-El Paso corridor, in the wake of the power shifts.

Break with the Beltran Leyva Cartel

A Newsweek investigation alleges that one of Guzman's techniques for maintaining his dominance among cartels included giving information to the DEA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that led to the arrests of his enemies in the Juarez Cartel, in addition to information that led to the arrests of some of the top Sinaloa leaders. The arrests are said to have been part of a deal Guzman struck with Calderon and the DEA, in which he intentionally gave up some of his purported Sinaloa colleagues to U.S. agents in exchange for immunity from prosecution, while perpetuating the idea that the Calderon government was heavily pursuing his organization during the cartel crackdown.

This became a key factor influencing the break between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltran Leyva brothers, five brothers who served as Guzman's top lieutenants, primarily working for the cartel in the northern region of Sinaloa. Sinaloa lawyer Loya-Castro, who like Guzman had been wanted on federal charges in the United States since 1993, voluntarily approached the DEA offering them information in 1998, eventually signing paperwork as a formal informant in 2005, and his U.S. indictment was thrown out in 2008. Loya-Castro's leaks to the DEA led to the dismantling of the Tijuana Cartel, as well as the Mexican Army's arrest of Guzman's lieutenant and the top commander of the Beltran Leyva organization, Alfredo Beltran Leyva (also known as El Mochomo, or "Desert Ant"), in Culiacan in January 2008, with Guzman believed to have given up El Mochomo for various reasons. Guzman had been voicing concerns with Alfredo Beltran's lifestyle and high-profile actions for some time before his arrest. After El Mochomo's arrest, authorities said he was in charge of two hit squads, money laundering, transporting drugs and bribing officials for Sinaloa.

That high-profile arrest was followed by the arrest of 11 Beltran Leyva hit squad members in Mexico City, with police noting that the arrests were the first evidence that Sinaloa had expanded into the capital city. United States Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza called the arrests a "significant victory" in the drug war. With Alfredo in custody, his brother Arturo Beltran Leyva took over as the brothers' top commander, but he was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines the next year.

Whether Guzman was responsible for Alfredo Beltran's arrest is not known. However, the Beltran Leyvas and their allies suspected he was behind it, and after Alfredo Beltran's arrest, a formal "war" was declared. An attempt on the life of cartel head Zambada's son Vicente Zambada Niebla (El Vincentillo) was made just hours after the declaration. Dozens of killings followed in retaliation for that attempt. The Beltran Leyva brothers ordered the assassination of Guzman's son, Edgar Guzman Lopez, on 8 May 2008, in Culiacan, which brought massive retaliation from Guzman. They were also fighting over the allegiance of the Flores brothers, Margarito and Pedro, leaders of a major, highly lucrative cell in Chicago that distributed over two tons of cocaine every month. The Mexican military claims that Guzman and the Beltran Leyva brothers were at odds over Guzman's relationship with the Valencia brothers in Michoacan.

Following the killing of Guzman's son Edgar, violence increased. From 8 May through the end of the month, over 116 people were murdered in Culiacan, 26 of them police officers. In June 2008, over 128 were killed; in July, 143 were slain. Gen. Noe Sandoval ordered another 2,000 troops to the area, but it failed to stop the war. The wave of violence spread to other cities like Guamuchil, Guasave and Mazatlan.

However, the Beltran Leyva brothers were doing some double-dealing of their own. Arturo and Alfredo had met with top members of Los Zetas in Cuernavaca, where they agreed to form an alliance to fill the power vacuum. They would not necessarily go after the main strongholds, such as the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartel; instead, they would seek control of southern states like Guerrero (where the Beltran Leyvas already had a big stake), Oaxaca, Yucatan and Quintana Roo. They worked their way into the center of the country, where no single group had control. The Beltran Leyva organization allied with the Gulf Cartel and its hit squad Los Zetas against Sinaloa.

The split was officially recognized by the U.S. government on 30 May 2008. On that day, it recognized the Beltran Leyva brothers as leaders of their own cartel. President George W. Bush designated Marcos Arturo Beltran Leyva and the Beltran Leyva Organization as subject to sanction under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act ("Kingpin Act").

Whereabouts and manhunt: 2001–2014

Guzman was notable among drug lords for his longevity and evasion of authorities, assisted by alleged bribes to federal, state and local Mexican officials. Despite the progress made in arresting others in the aftermath of Guzman's escape, including a handful of his top logistics and security men, the huge military and federal police manhunt failed to capture Guzman himself for years. In the years between his escape and capture, he was Mexico's most-wanted man. His elusiveness from law enforcement made him a near-legendary figure in Mexico's narcotics folklore; stories abounded that Guzman sometimes strolled into restaurants, confiscated peoples' cellphones, ate his meal, and then left after paying everyone's tabs. Rumors circulated of Guzman being seen in different parts of Mexico and abroad. For more than thirteen years, Mexican security forces coordinated many operatives to rearrest him, but their efforts were largely in vain because Guzman appeared to be steps ahead from his captors.

Although his whereabouts were unknown, the authorities thought that he was likely hiding in the "Golden Triangle" (Spanish: Triangulo Dorado), an area that encompasses parts of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua in the Sierra Madre region. The region is a major producer of marijuana and opium poppy in Mexico, and its remoteness from the urban areas makes it an attractive territory for the production of synthetic drugs in clandestine laboratories and for its mountains that serve as possible hideouts. Guzman reportedly commanded a sophisticated security circle of at least 300 informants and gunmen resembling the manpower equivalent to those of a head of state. His inner circle would help him move around through several isolated ranches in the mountainous area and avoid capture. He usually escaped from law enforcement using bulletproof cars, aircraft, and all-terrain vehicles, and was known to employ sophisticated communications gadgetry and counterespionage practices. Since many of these locations in the Golden Triangle can only be reached over single-track dirt roads, local residents easily detected the arrival of law enforcement or any outsiders. Their distrust towards non-residents and their aversion towards the government, alongside a combination of bribery and intimidation, helped keep the locals loyal to Guzman and the Sinaloa Cartel in the area. According to law enforcement intelligence, attempting to have launched an attack to capture Guzman by air would have had similar results; his security circle would have warned him of the presence of an aircraft 10 minutes away from Guzman’s location, giving him ample time to escape the scene and avoid arrest. In addition, his gunmen reportedly carried surface-to-air missiles that may bring down aircraft in the area.

Second capture: 2014

Although Guzman had long hidden successfully in remote areas of the Sierra Madre mountains, the arrested members of his security team told the military he had begun venturing out to Culiacan and the beach town of Mazatlan. A week before his capture, Guzman and Zambada were reported to have attended a family reunion in Sinaloa. The Mexican military followed the bodyguards' tips to Guzman’s former wife's house, but they had trouble ramming the steel-reinforced front door, which allowed Guzman to escape through a system of secret tunnels that connected six houses, eventually moving south to Mazatlan. He had planned to stay a few days in Mazatlan to see his twin baby daughters before retreating to the mountains.

On 22 February 2014, at around 6:40 a.m., Mexican authorities arrested Guzman at a hotel in a beachfront area in Mazatlan, following an operation by the Mexican Navy, with joint intelligence from the DEA and the U.S. Marshals Service. A few days before his capture, Mexican authorities had been raiding several properties owned by members of the Sinaloa Cartel who were close to Guzman throughout the state of Sinaloa. The operation that led to his capture started at 3:45 a.m., when ten pickup trucks of the Mexican Navy carrying over 65 soldiers made their way to the resort area. Guzman was hiding at the Miramar condominiums, located at #608 on Avenida de Mar. Mexican and U.S. federal agents had leads that the drug lord had been at that location for at least two days, and that he was staying on the condominium's fourth floor, in Room 401. When the Mexican authorities arrived at the location, they quickly subdued Carlos Manuel Hoo Ramirez, one of Guzman's presumed bodyguards, before quietly making their way to the fourth floor by the elevators and stairs. Once they were at Guzman's front door, they broke into the apartment and stormed the two rooms it had. In one of the rooms was Guzman, lying in bed with his wife (former beauty queen Emma Coronel Aispuro). Their two daughters were reported to have been at the condominium during the arrest. Guzman tried to resist arrest physically, but he did not attempt to grab an assault rifle he had close to him. Amid the quarrel with the marines, the drug lord was hit four times. By 6:40 a.m., he was arrested, taken to the ground floor, and walked to the condominium's parking lot, where the first photos of his capture were taken. His identity was confirmed through a fingerprint examination immediately following his capture. He was then flown to Mexico City, the country's capital, for formal identification. According to the Mexican government, no shots were fired during the operation.

Few details of the drug lord's arrest were available early in the morning while the mugshot of Guzman, handcuffed and with a few cuts on his face, circulated among law enforcement. Guzman was presented in front of cameras during a press conference at the Mexico City International Airport that afternoon. Following the press conference, he was transferred to the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum-security prison in Almoloya de Juarez, State of Mexico, at around 2:55 p.m on a Federal Police Black Hawk helicopter. The helicopter was escorted by two Navy helicopters and one from the Mexican Air Force. Surveillance inside the penitentiary and in the surrounding areas was increased by a large contingent of law enforcement.

Reactions

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto confirmed the arrest through Twitter and congratulated the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), Secretariat of the Navy (SEMAR), Office of the General Prosecutor (PGR), the Federal Police, and the Centro de Investigacion y Seguridad Nacional (CISEN) for Guzman's capture. Within Mexico, several politicians recognized the efforts of the Mexican government in capturing Guzman, including the former Presidents Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and Felipe Calderon (2006–2012). In the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder said Guzman had caused "death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe" and called the arrest "a landmark achievement, and a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States". Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos telephoned Pena Nieto and congratulated him for the arrest of Guzman, highlighting its importance in the international efforts against drug trafficking. Colombia's Defense Minister, Juan Carlos Pinzon, congratulated Mexico on Guzman's arrest and stated that his capture "contributes to eradicate this crime (drug trafficking) in the region". The Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina congratulated the Mexican government for the arrest. He said he would communicate personally with Pena Nieto to congratulate him. Costa Rica's President Laura Chinchilla congratulated the Mexican government through Twitter for the capture too. The French government extended its congratulations on 24 February and supported the Mexican security forces in their combat against organized crime. News of Guzman's capture made it to the headlines of many news outlets across the U.S., Latin America, and Europe. On Twitter, Mexico and Guzman's capture were trending topics throughout most of 22 February 2014.

Bob Nardoza, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office for the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, announced that U.S. authorities plan to seek the extradition of Guzman for several cases pending against him in New York and other United States jurisdictions.

Charges and imprisonment

Guzman was imprisoned in area #20, Hallway #1, on 22 February 2014. The area where he lived was highly restricted; the cells do not have any windows, inmates are not allowed to interact with one another, and they are not permitted to contact their family members. His cell was close to those of Jose Jorge Balderas (alias "El JJ"), former lieutenant of the Beltran Leyva Cartel, and Jaime Gonzalez Duran (alias "El Hummer"), a former leader of Los Zetas drug cartel. In one of the other units is Miguel Angel Guzman Loera, one of his brothers. Guzman was alone in his cell, and had one bed, one shower, and a single toilet. His lawyer was Oscar Quirarte, who was accredited by the government. Guzman was allowed to receive visits from his family members every nine days from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (if approved by a judge), and was granted by law to receive MXN$638 (about US$48) every month to buy products for personal hygiene. He lived under 23 hours of solitary confinement with an hour of outdoor exposure. He was only allowed to speak with people during his judicial hearings (the prison guards that secured his cell 24 hours a day, 7 days a week were not allowed to speak with him). Unlike the other inmates, Guzman was prohibited from practicing sport or cultural activities. These conditions were court-approved and could only be changed if a federal judge decided to amend them.

On 24 February, the Mexican government formally charged Guzman for drug trafficking, a process that may slow down his possible extradition to the U.S. The decision to initially file only one charge against him showed that the Mexican government was working on gathering more formal charges against Guzman, and possibly including the charges he faced before his escape from prison in 2001. The kingpin also faces charges in at least seven U.S. jurisdictions, and U.S. officials have called for his extradition (though no formal extradition request by the U.S. government exists at this time). Guzman was initially granted a writ of amparo (effectively equivalent to an injunction) preventing immediate extradition to the United States. On 25 February, a Mexican federal judge set the trial in motion for drug-related and organized crime charges. According to Mexican law, if Guzman is found guilty of such charges, he may face 20 and up to 40 years in prison. On 4 March 2014, a Mexican federal court issued a formal charge against Guzman for his involvement in organized crime. A day later, another Mexican federal court charged him with organized crime and drug trafficking violations.

On 5 March 2014, a Mexico City federal court rejected Guzman's injunction against extradition to the U.S. on the grounds that the U.S. officials had not formally requested his extradition from Mexico. The court said that if the U.S. files a request in the future, Guzman can petition for another injunction. The court had until 9 April 2014 to issue a formal declaration of the injunction's rejection, and Guzman's lawyers can appeal the court's decision in the meantime. The same day that the injunction was rejected, another federal court issued formal charges against Guzman, totaling up to five different Mexican federal courts where he is wanted for drug trafficking and organized crime charges. The court explained that although Guzman faces charges in several different courts, he cannot be sentenced for the same crime twice because that would violate Article 23 of the Constitution of Mexico.

On 17 April 2014, the Attorney General of Mexico, Jesus Murillo Karam, said that Mexico had no intention of extraditing Guzman to the U.S. even if a formal request were to be presented. He said he wished to see Guzman face charges in Mexico, and expressed his disagreement with how the U.S. cuts deals with extradited Mexican criminals by reducing their sentences (as in Vicente Zambada Niebla's case) in exchange for information.

On 16 July 2014, Guzman reportedly helped organize a five-day hunger strike in the prison in cooperation with inmate and former drug lord Edgar Valdez Villarreal (alias "La Barbie"). Over 1,000 prisoners reportedly participated in the protest and complained of the prison's poor hygiene, food, and medical treatment. The Mexican government confirmed that the strike took place and that the prisoners' demands were satisfied, but denied that Guzman or Valdez Villarreal were involved in it given their status as prisoners in solitary confinement.

On 25 September 2014, Guzman and his former business partner Zambada were indicted by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. According to the court documents, both of them conspired to kill Mexican law enforcement officers, government officials, and members of the Mexican Armed Forces. Among the people killed under the alleged orders of Guzman were Roberto Velasco Bravo (2008), the chief of Mexico's organized crime investigatory division; Rafael Ramirez Jaime (2008), the chief of the arrest division of the Attorney General's Office; Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes (2004), former leader of the Juarez Cartel, among other criminals from the Tijuana, Los Zetas, Beltran Leyva, and Juarez crime syndicates. Neither Guzman nor Zambada was charged for the killings of the individuals mentioned in the indictment. The court alleged that Guzman used professional assassins to carry out "... hundreds of acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnappings, assassinations and acts of torture". In addition, it alleged that he oversaw a drug-trafficking empire that transported multi-ton shipments of narcotics from South America, through Central America and Mexico, and then to the U.S., and that his network was facilitated by corrupt law enforcement and public officials. It also alleged that Guzman laundered more than US$14 billion in drug proceeds along with several other high-ranking drug lords.

On 11 November 2014, a federal court in Sinaloa granted Guzman an injunction for weaponry charges, which accused him of violating Mexico's Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives. The weaponry charges were dropped after the judge determined that the arrest was not carried out the way the Mexican Navy reported it. According to law enforcement, the Navy apprehended Guzman after they received an anonymous tip that someone was armed in the hotel where he was staying. However, no evidence of the anonymous tip was provided. The judge also determined that the investigations leading to his arrest were not presented in court. He determined that law enforcement's version of the arrest had several irregularities because the Navy did not have a raid warrant when they entered the premises and arrested Guzman (when he was not the subject matter of the anonymous tip in the first place). The plaintiff plans to lay the firearms charges against him again once they present a congruent, fact-based version of the arrest.

On 20 January 2015, Guzman requested another injunction through his lawyer Andres Granados Flores to prevent his extradition to the U.S. His defense argued that if he were to be extradited and judged in a foreign court, his constitutional rights would be violated as expressed in Articles 1, 14, 16, 17, 18 and 20 of the Constitution of Mexico. The decision of his defense was made after Attorney General Murillo Karam said at a press conference that the U.S. was pushing to formally request his extradition. The PGR and Mexico's Secretariat of Foreign Affairs stated that Guzman had a provisional arrest with extradition purposes from the U.S. government since 17 February 2001, but that the formal proceedings to officiate the extradition were not realized because investigators considered that the request was outdated and believed it would have been difficult to gather potential witnesses. Murillo Karam said that the Mexican government would process the request when they deemed it appropriate. He asked for a second injunction preventing his extradition on 26 January. Mexico City federal judge Fabricio Villegas asked federal authorities to confirm in 24 hours if there was a pending extradition request against Guzman. In a press conference the following day, Murillo Karam said that he was expecting a request from Washington, but said that they would not extradite him until he faces charges and completes his sentences in Mexico. If all the charges are added up, Guzman may receive a sentence between 300 to 400 years.

Second escape: 2015

On 11 July 2015, Guzman escaped from Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1, a maximum-security prison. After receiving medication, Guzman was last seen by security cameras at 20:52 hours near the shower area. The shower area was the only part of his cell that was not visible through the security camera. After the guards did not see him for twenty-five minutes on surveillance video, personnel went looking for him. When they reached his cell, Guzman was gone. It was discovered he had escaped through a tunnel leading from the shower area to a house construction site 1.5 km (0.93 mi) away in a Santa Juanita neighborhood. The tunnel lay 10 m (32.8 ft) deep underground, and Guzman used a ladder to climb to the bottom. The tunnel was 1.7 m (5.7 ft) tall and 75 cm (29.5 in) in width. It was equipped with artificial light, air ducts, and high-quality construction materials. In addition, a motorcycle was found in the tunnel, which authorities think was used to transport materials and possibly Guzman himself. Presumably, high accuracy GPS for topography must have been used to pinpoint Guzman cell position with precision. Although guards discovered that Guzman had escaped at 21:22 hours, a 'red alert', which locks down the prison and alerts a nearby military garrison, was only activated at midnight.

The escape of Guzman triggered a wide-range manhunt. According to Mexico's National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido Garcia, the manhunt was instituted immediately in the surrounding area by putting up several checkpoints and air searches by helicopter. The entire prison was put on lockdown and no one was allowed to enter or leave. The search was then extended to other federal entities: Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Morelos, Puebla, Guerrero, Michoacan, Queretaro, Hidalgo and Tlaxcala. However, most of the military officers involved in the search were sent to the State of Mexico. The Mexican government also issued an international warning to prevent Guzman from escaping the country through airports, border checkpoints, or ports. Interpol and other security organizations were alerted to the possibility of him escaping into another country. Flights at the Toluca International Airport were cancelled, while soldiers occupied parts of Mexico City International Airport. Out of the 120 employees that were working at the prison that night, eighteen employees from the prison were initially detained for questioning; those eighteen worked in the area of Guzman's cell. By the afternoon, a total of 31 people had been called in for questioning. The director of the prison, Valentin Cardenas Lerma, was among those detained.

When the news of the escape broke out, President Pena Nieto was heading to a state visit in France along with several top officials from his cabinet and many others. The Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, who was already in France waiting for them, returned to Mexico after learning of Guzman's prison break. Pena Nieto returned to Mexico on 17 July. In a press conference, Pena Nieto said he was very shocked by Guzman's escape, and promised that the government would carry out an intensive investigation to see if officials had collaborated in the prison break. In addition, he claimed that Guzman's escape was an "affront" to the Mexican government, and that they would not spare any resources in trying to recapture him. Pena Nieto, however, was severely criticized for the incident, and media outlets pointed out that this incident was among the administration's most embarrassing episodes. Critics stated that Guzman's escape highlighted the high levels of corruption within the government, and questioned the government's ability to combat the country's organized crime groups.

Manhunt and investigation

On 13 July 2015, Osorio Chong met with members of the cabinet that specialize in security and law enforcement intelligence to discuss the escape of Guzman. They scheduled a press conference at 19:00 that day. The objective of the meeting and the conference was to analyze the actions the government employed to recapture him. Among them were Rubido Garcia, Arely Gomez Gonzalez, the Attorney General of Mexico and Eugenio Imaz Gispert, head of the Center for Research and National Security. At the press conference, the government placed a $60 million MXN bounty (approximately US$3.8 million) for information that leads to Guzman's arrest.

Colombian involvement

Officials of the Mexican government have appealed to three Colombian Police retired generals for assistance in the closure of issues relating to Guzman, according to a report dated to 1 August. Among them is Rosso Jose Serrano, a decorated officer and one of the masterminds behind the dismantling of the Cali Cartel and Medellin Cartel and Luis Enrique Montenegro, protagonist in the arrests of Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela. They suggested particular Colombian strategies like creation of especial search units ("Bloques de Busqueda" or Search Blocs), specialized investigation and intelligence units, like DIJIN (Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol) and DIPOL (Directorate of Police Intelligence) and new laws about money laundering and asset forfeiture.

Accomplices

A number of officials were indicted, of these, three were police-officers employed within the Division of Intelligence, and another two, were employed by CISEN.

Third capture: 2016

On January 8, 2016, the Mexican Navy's Fuerzas Especiales captured Guzman at the coastal city of Los Mochis in northern Sinaloa following a gun battle, along with Ivan Gastelum, known as "El Cholo", a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Navy Marines had support from the Mexican Army and the Federal Police. Five suspects were killed, six others arrested, and one Marine wounded. The Mexican Navy said that they found eight assault rifles at the premises, including two .50 BMG machine guns, two armored cars and a loaded rocket launcher. Guzman and Gastelum managed to escape through sewer tunnels under the house initially raided, which is in a neighborhood of Los Mochis called Scally, and proceeded to rob a vehicle. Authorities found the whereabouts of this vehicle and it was intercepted. They were then taken to a motel on the outskirts of the town to wait for reinforcements. They were subsequently taken to Los Mochis airport for transport to Mexico City. Complaints by members of the public about "armed people" in the house searched were crucial for his arrest.

Guzman had a close call in October 2015 after cell phone interceptions directed Mexican Navy soldiers to a ranch in the Sierra Madre Mountains in western Mexico. The raid on the ranch was received with heavy gunfire and it was believed Guzman was able to flee, apparently injured. The capture was first announced to the public via the President's Twitter account.

Reactions

Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong was hosting a reunion with Mexico's ambassadors and consuls when he received a notice from the President of Guzman's capture. He returned a few moments later with Secretary of National Defense Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, Secretary of Navy Vidal Francisco Soberon Sanz and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Claudia Ruiz Massieu. Osorio Chong then announced the capture to the diplomats by reading the President's tweet which resulted in applause and chants of Viva Mexico, Viva el Presidente Pena and Viva las Fuerzas Armadas (Long live Mexico, Long live President Pena, Long live our Military Forces). This was followed by a spontaneous rendition of the National Anthem by the crowd.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the U.S. is now expected to revive extradition requests. Miguel Barbosa Huerta, PRD coordinator in the Senate of Mexico, asked for a trial in Mexico, while Fernando Yunes, PAN senator declared he favored extradition. Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos, congratulated Mexican President, Enrique Pena Nieto, for the capture of Guzman. Santos stated that "Guzman's capture is a success, a great blow against organised crime, and drug trafficking", adding that "finally, this individual (Guzman), like all criminals, will find what he deserves in the eyes of justice, and we celebrate that the Mexican authorities have recaptured this criminal". Loretta Lynch, United States Attorney General, praised Mexican authorities "who have worked tirelessly in recent months to bring Guzman to justice" but made no comments on extradition of Guzman to the United States, where he is accused on several charges. Florida senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio called for him "to face American justice" and Arizona Senator John McCain asked for extradition.

Family

Guzman's family is heavily involved in drug trafficking, with several members killed by Sinaloa's archrival cartels Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva Organization, including his brother and one of his sons.

In 1977, Guzman married Alejandrina Maria Salazar Hernandez in a small ceremony in the town of Jesus Maria, Sinaloa. They had at least three children: Cesar, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo. He set them up in a ranch home in Jesus Maria. In the mid-1980s, Guzman remarried, this time to Griselda Lopez Perez, with whom he had four more children: Edgar, Joaquin, Ovidio and Griselda Guadalupe. Guzman's sons would follow him into the drug business. Lopez Perez was arrested in 2010 in Culiacan.

In November 2007, Guzman married 18-year-old beauty queen Emma Coronel Aispuro the daughter of one of his top deputies, Ines Coronel Barreras, in Canelas, Durango. In August 2011, Coronel Aispuro, a citizen of the United States, gave birth to twin girls in a Los Angeles (California) County Hospital.

On 1 May 2013, Guzman's father-in-law Ines Coronel Barreras was captured by Mexican authorities in Agua Prieta, Sonora, with no gunfire exchanged. U.S. authorities believe that Coronel Barreras was a "key operative" of the Sinaloa Cartel who grew and smuggled marijuana through the Arizona border area.

On 15 February 2005, his son Ivan Archivaldo, known as "El Chapito", was arrested in Guadalajara on money laundering charges. He was sentenced to five years in a federal prison, but released in April 2008 after a Mexican federal judge, Jesus Guadalupe Luna, ruled that there was no proof his cash came from drugs other than that he was a drug lord's son. Luna and another judge were later suspended on suspicion of unspecified irregularities in their decisions, including Luna's decision to release "El Chapito".

Guzman's son Edgar Guzman Lopez died after a 2008 ambush in a shopping center parking lot in Culiacan in Sinaloa. Afterwards, police found more than 500 AK-47 bullet casings (7.62×39mm) at the scene. His brother Arturo, or "El Pollo", was killed in prison in 2004.

Another of Guzman's sons, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, known as "El Gordo" ("The Fat One"), then 23 years old, was suspected of being a member of the cartel and was indicted on federal charges of drug trafficking in 2009 with Guzman by the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, which oversees Chicago. With authorities describing Guzman Salazar as a growing force within his father's organization and directly responsible for Sinaloa's drug trade between the U.S. and Mexico and managing his billionaire father's growing list of properties, Guzman Salazar and his mother, Guzman's former wife Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez, were both described as key operatives in the Sinaloa Cartel and added to the U.S.'s financial sanction list under the Kingpin Act on 7 June 2012.

The Treasury Department described Salazar as Guzman's wife in its sanction against her, and described Guzman as her husband. The month before, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against Guzman's sons Ivan Guzman Salazar and Ovidio Guzman Lopez under the Kingpin Act, which prohibits people and corporations in the U.S. from conducting businesses with them and freezes their U.S. assets. Guzman's second wife, Griselda Lopez Perez, was also sanctioned by the U.S. under the Kingpin Act and also described as Guzman's wife.

Jesus Guzman Salazar was reported to have been detained by Mexican Marines in an early morning raid in the western state of Jalisco on 21 June 2012. Months later, however, the Mexican Attorney General's Office announced the Marines had arrested the wrong man and that the man captured was actually Felix Beltran Leon, who said he was a used-car dealer, not the drug lord's son. U.S. and Mexican authorities blamed each other for providing the inaccurate information that led to the arrest.

In 2012, Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman Salazar, a 31-year-old pregnant physician and Mexican citizen from Guadalajara, was said to have claimed she was Guzman's daughter as she crossed the U.S. border into San Diego. She was arrested on fraud charges for entering the country with a false visa. Unnamed officials said the woman was the daughter of Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez but did not appear to be a major figure in the cartel. She had planned to meet the father of her child in Los Angeles and give birth in the United States.

On the night of 17 June 2012, Obied Cano Zepeda, a nephew of Guzman, was gunned down by unknown assailants at his home in the state capital of Culiacan while hosting a Father's Day celebration. The gunmen, who were reportedly carrying AK-47 rifles, also killed two other guests and left one seriously injured. Obied was a brother of Luis Alberto Cano Zepeda (alias "El Blanco"), a nephew of Guzman who worked as a pilot drug transporter for the Sinaloa cartel. Nonetheless, he was arrested by the Mexican military in August 2006. InSight Crime notes that the murder of Obied may have been a retaliation attack by Los Zetas for Guzman's incursions into their territory or a brutal campaign heralding Los Zetas' presence in Sinaloa.

In popular culture

There are several Mexican narco-corrido (Narco-Ballads) that narrate some of the exploits of Guzman and his organization. There are also some American artists that have made songs with references to "El Chapo", such as the rappers Gucci Mane and Jayceon "The Game" Terrell.