The 32-page court document opens like a Star Wars movie:
El Chapo Guzman appears to be headed for New York trial
U.S. officials recently filed a "Superseding Indictment" against the accused drug lord in the Eastern District of New York, a sign that the city will likely host his trial
Por:Gerardo Reyes
El arresto de Joaquín Guzmán no logró desestabilizar al cartel de Sinaloa, del que era líder.
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"Since the eighties the Mexican Federation ... existed as an organized crime syndicate, founded upon longstanding relationships between Mexico's major drug trafficking kingpins. The Federation functioned as a council...,'' it reads.
What follows is a staggering saga of drug trafficking covering 84 drug shipments spanning 25 years and worrth an estimated $14 billion, accompanied by ruthless violence and jaw-dropping corruption, according to U.S. federal prosecutors in New York's Eastern District.
In total the shipments add up to about 135 tons of drugs. One shipment alone, in March 2007, amounted to 19 tons of cocaine.
The defendants, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán and Ismael El Mayo Zambada, leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, are charged with working in cahoots with one of Colombia's most notorious drug cartels, the Northern Valley, to smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States via Mexico, as well as heroin, metamphetamine and marijuana.
Guzmán once the world’s most wanted drug lord, was recaptured in January six months after his scandalous tunnel escape from a maximum security jail that deeply embarrassed Mexico’s government.
Last week Mexico's foreign ministry approved the extradition of the accused drug trafficker. His defense team has said it is willing to negotiate with the U.S. government in exchange for Guzmán to be held in a medium-security prison.
Guzmán already faced several charges in the United States, but this latest New York indictment could be the last word from Justice Department prosectors seeking to bring him to trial, according to one legal expert, as well as key details in the court document.
It was filed May 11 without any media fanfare, four days after Guzmán was transferred to a high-security prison in Ciudad Juarez, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
El narcotraficante fue recluido el 8 de enero en la prisión del Altiplano, tras ser recapturado en su estado natal de Sinaloa, seis meses después de su fuga.
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"This is not just another indictment, this prosecution has a very specific purpose which is to ... show how it will bring the case against this gentleman and his associates,'' said Miami attorney, Oscar Rodriguez, who has represented several of Guzmán's Colombian partners in U.S. court.
The New York prosecutors are "seeking to unify all fronts in a way they can present not only to the Mexican government but also to a jury with an orderly series of witnesses and evidence," said Rodriguez.
In fact, the latest charges are an update of the existing charges, what is known as a "Superseding Indictment.''
In the early 2000s, Guzman and Zambada "formed a partnership that led to the transformation of the Federation into the Sinaloa Cartel, which became the largest drug trafficking organizaiton in the world," the 17-count indictment alleges. The cartel hired hitmen, truck drivers and submarine crews to funnel drugs in to the United States.
Prosecutors also directly address one issue - Sinaloa Cartel violence - that was downplayed in earlier charges against Guzmán in United States.
"The defendants … employed 'sicarios,' or hitmen, who carried out hundreds of acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnappings, assassinations and acts of torture," says the document. Violent methods include "retaliating against anyone who provided information or assistance to law enforcement authorities."
Corruption also figures prominently in the charges, highlighting methods Guzmán and Zambada allegedly used to reinforce the cartel's operations.
In addition to the long history covered by the charges between 1989 and 2014, other factors indicating this could be the definitive indictment are as follows:
- The indictment consolidates cases in Arizona, Texas, New Jersey and Illinois and mentions the involvement of the federal prosecutor in Miami where a case was also being processed.
- The Eastern District of New York was the most active in the prosecution of the Northern Valley Cartel leaders who sold drugs to Guzmán's organization, and the latest charges including a section titled: International Distribution of Cocaine with the Northern Valley Cartel. Some of the accused cartel members have not completed their sentences and could serve as witnesses against Guzman.