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hide captionDrug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, seen here in 1993, was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican officials.
Damian Dovarganes/AP
Drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, seen here in 1993, was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican officials.
Damian Dovarganes/AP
This story was updated at 12:15 p.m. ET.
The head of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican officials in the Pacific coastal town of Mazatlan.
The Associated Press first broke the story, quoting an unnamed "senior U.S. law enforcement official." NPR's Carrie Johnson has confirmed the arrest.
AP reports:
"Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. and is on the Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted list. His drug empire stretches throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. His cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last several years."In a 2012 story in The New York Times, Guzman was described as "the world's most powerful drug trafficker."
The Times wrote:
"Guzmán's organization is responsible for as much as half of the illegal narcotics imported into the United States from Mexico each year; he may well be the most-wanted criminal in this post-Bin Laden world."It's not the first time that authorities had gotten close to Guzman. In 2012, NPR's Melisa Goh reported that the Mexican Navy had had to backtrack after announcing that the drug kingpin's son, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, had been captured, only to realize later they had gotten the wrong man.
