El Chapo

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera (Spanish: [xoaˈkin aɾtʃiˈβaldo ɣusˈman loˈeɾa]; born 4 April 1957), commonly known as "El Chapo" (Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈt͡ʃapo]), is a Mexican former drug lord and the former top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Guzmán is believed to be responsible for the deaths of over 34,000 people, and was considered to be the most powerful drug trafficker in the world until he was extradited to the United States and sentenced to life in prison. Guzmán was born in Sinaloa and raised in a poor farming family. He endured much physical abuse at the hands of his father, through whom he also entered the drug trade. During his early adulthood, his father helped him grow marijuana for local dealers. By the late 1970s, Guzmán had begun working with Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, one of the nation's rising drug lords. He helped Salazar map routes to move drugs through Sinaloa and into the United States. He supervised logistics for Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, one of the nation's leading kingpins, in the mid-1980s, but founded his own cartel in 1988 after Félix's arrest. Guzmán oversaw operations whereby cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and heroin were mass-produced, smuggled into, and distributed throughout the United States and Europe, the world's largest users. He pioneered the use of distribution cells and long-range tunnels near borders, which enabled him to export more drugs to the United States than any other trafficker in history. Guzmán's leadership of the cartel brought immense wealth and power; Forbes ranked him one of the most powerful people in the world between 2009 and 2013, while the Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that he matched the influence and wealth of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Guzmán was first captured in 1993 in Guatemala and then was extradited and sentenced to 20 years in...