Narco Bling: Chapo Guzman End Game (Full Episode) | SPECIAL | National Geographic

NARRATOR: January 8th, 2016.

(explosion) (speaking in native language) (gunfire) (speaking in native language) NARRATOR: In the coastal Mexican city of Los Mochis, an elite group of Mexican Marines battle Sinaloa Cartel operatives.

The prize; possibly the world's most wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán Loer.

After two prison breaks and over a decade on the run, Guzmán had evaded authorities for the last time.

He was headed to the United States to stand trial.

A trial that promised to separate man from myth and shed light on the inner workings of the multi-billion dollar drug trad.

This is a story of the power of drug money, the bling, the muscle, the corruption of authority.

But it's also the story of the drug war, and that war's limits.

(theme music playing).

AZAM: Chapo Guzmán was in a prison called Altiplano, which is a super max prison in, just on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Now this is a place, to even get to the row that he was being held on, which was sort of solitary confinement, it, you went through like 15 different doors, and each would have to close before another would open.

JOSHUA: The cell, there was no toilet.

There was just a hole in the ground.

There was a small shower stall with, maybe a waist high wall.

AZAM: He's just kind of pacing.

Walking back and forth, which I imagine a lot of those guys do in that situation.

There's not much else going on.

JOSHUA: He goes back and checks behind the shower stall, comes back to his bed, takes his shoes.

Goes back to the shower stall again.

AZAM: He bends over, and he vanishes.

And you're just like, "Well, where did he go?

" NARRATOR: Joaquin Guzmán Loera, alias "El Chapo," or "Shorty," was on the run.

AZAM: This guy's escaped again.

Like, for the second time.

From a maximum security, after one year in prison.

It sort of defied the imagination.

You couldn't make something like that up.

NARRATOR: The escape route led from a hole carved out of the reinforced concrete floor of his shower, to a ventilated tunnel, equipped with light bulbs and a motorcycle on rails.

JOSHUA: He is driven about a mile underground to a little cinder block shack, outside of the prison, where he manages to escape.

NARRATOR: Despite 24-hour video surveillance, it took the prison guards some 25 minutes to realize something was wrong and nearly three hous to put the prison on lockdown.

By then, Chapo was probably long gone, on his way back to his stronghold in Mexico's western Sierra Madre mountains.

AZAM: Chapo, the pioneer of the tunnel, tunnels himself out of Mexico's most secure prison.

It's the kind of thing that if you saw it in a television show, you'd be like, "Oh yeah, Hollywood.

" but it wasn't.

It was just Chapo.

NARRATOR: At Guzmán's trial, his top lieutenant Dámaso Lopez Nuñez offered new details, and linked Guzmán's wife, Emma Coronel to the escape.

NARRATOR: According to López Nuñez, planning began just weeks after Guzmán's arrival, a GPS watch was smuggled in to pinpoint the location of his cell.

And Guzmán and other prisoners heard the digging.

NARRATOR: Costs for constructin and bribes never addressed at the trial were estimated in the millions of dollars.

AZAM: It obviously cost a lot.

It was a, it was not an inexpensive undertaking, but then again, it's like, that's not even a rounding error for something like the Sinaloa Cartel.

Chapo could fund that with like pocket change from a weekend.

NARRATOR: Across Mexico's northern border the United States is the largest illegal drug market in the world.

An estimated $6 billion in profits return to Mexican cartels every year; a rough guess based on factors like seizures, crop production and consumption.

But at the Guzmán trial, top cartel operatives provided an unprecedented glimpse into the actual money involved.

The Sinaloa Cartel would buy cocaine in Colombia at $3,000 a kilo.

After transporting the cocaine up through Mexico via land, air, and sea, they would sell that same kilo in LA for 20,000, Chicago for 25,000 and in New York for 35,000.

The profits in each of those cities, after subtracting costs, were enormous.

In the trial alone, prosecutors linked Guzmán and the Sinaloa Cartel to more than 500 tons of cocaine over a 25-year period.

The income from only that cocaine, and there was most likely much more, may have topped $11 billion.

It's the kind of cash that can buy a lot of things, tunnels officials weapons and plenty of bling.

Mexico City.

One of the largest cities on the planet.

In 2011 National Geographic correspondent Mariana van Zellr went to Mexico to better understand the drug war and its excesses.

MARIANA: We're driving around one of the most expensive neighborhoods here in Mexico City.

This is sort of the Beverly Hills of the city.

Homes here are worth millions of dollars.

There are security guards on almost every corner and we're about to go visit one of these houses.

NARRATOR: This mansion was seized by the Mexican government.

At the time, the house had been vacant for four years and under 24-hour guard.

It used to belong to this man, Zhenli Ye Gon.

He was in the pharmaceutical business.

The government said he was working for the Sinaloa Cartel.

(speaking in native language).

MARIANA: Wow!

NARRATOR: Alba Zabaneh is an appraiser of seized government properties.

(speaking in native language).

NARRATOR: Chandeliers by Baccarat.

Couches by Versace.

NARRATOR: Zhenli Ye Gon's house was full of expensive merchandise.

MARIANA: These are cases for Patek Philippe watches, Swiss watches that are worth tens of thousands of dollars.

NARRATOR: These photos show just some of the jewelry and watches found here.

MARIANA: And of course, none of it compares to what was found in this secret compartment.

This is a double door closet.

You see this door is made out of metal, but led to these filing cabinets that were stashed with some of the over $205 million that were found in this house.

NARRATOR: It was one of the largest drug-related cash seizures eve.

MARIANA: And of course, the authorities seized this house because they believed that Zhenli Ye Gon was selling the precursor chemicals, the chemicals used to make methamphetamine to the infamous Sinaloa drug cartel.

NARRATOR: In 2007, Zhenli Ye Gn escaped to the United States ad denied any wrongdoing.

He was extradited back to Mexio in 2016 and sent to prison.

He awaits a decision on drug trafficking, money laundering, and firearms charges.

At this auction in Mexico City in 2011, the government is selling off jewelry, paintings and even luxury cars.

Some of these items were once owned by suspected drug traffickers and Zhenli Ye Gon.

MARIANA: What are trying to buy here today?

MARIANA: Do you, do you know where these items come from?

NARRATOR: For some buyers, items tied to an infamous owner have their own cache.

NARRATOR: And no drug trafficker is a bigger celebriy than Joaquin El Chapo Guzmán.

IOAN: With the level of notoriety of fame that El Chapo has he's one of the three most well-known gangsters in the last 100 years, alongside Pablo Escobar and Al Capone.

NARRATOR: He escaped maximum security prison twice.

Spent 13 years on the run and was listed in Forbes magazine as a billionaire.

For decades, he was the face of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, but the trial made clear that he wasn't alone.

IOAN: El Chapo became an emblematic leader, a symbol of the cartel.

But I think it's more likely he was always ever, only ever one of many traffickers, rather than a single top-down leader.

NARRATOR: Culiacán, the capitol city of Sinaloa.

Bustling metropolis and stronghold of the Sinaloa Cartel.

It's believed organized crime accounts for some 15% of the state's econom.

In 2011, drug trafficking's influence in Culiacán was noticeable.

Local police commanders in heavily armed security details.

Disputes negotiated through the barrel of a gun.

And, then as now, on Benito Juarez street, a thriving business changing dollars into pesos.

Those in the drug trade are often paid in dollars.

They exchange those dollars for pesos here.

Even in death, narco culture pervades Culiacán.

This cemetery houses some of the biggest names in Sinaloan drug trafficking.

The outsized profits are on full display.

Some of these mausoleums are said to cost over $500,000.

They are three stories high.

They have air conditioning.

And some even have bulletproof glass.

The graves of fallen drug lords and foot soldiers aren't the only high-priced obsessions of the narco lifestyle.

Across Mexico, drug traffickers pay special attention to their gun.

They personalize them with jewels, names and initials, and often bathe them in gold.

This gun was seized in a safe-house in Culiacán.

It's initials, "JGL," stand for Joaquin Guzmán Loera, El Chapo.

This video was taken in 1993, during Guzmán's first prison stint.

He broke out of that prison eight years later.

And went on to help grow the Sinaloa Cartel into a powerhouse.

NARRATOR: With billions of dollars flowing back to Mexico in drug proceeds, narco cash buys more than just bling.

The cartels use those riches to combat their enemies and outgun law enforcement.

This incident was caught by surveillance cameras.

March 2010.

Sinaloa sicarios enter Creel, in the state of Chihuahua.

At the time, Guzmán and the Sinaloa Cartel were pushing to control Chihuahua and the valuable Juarez border crossin.

First, they block off access to the town.

Any motorist who enters is stopped and searched.

Their leader, Enrique Lopez Acosta, a Sinaloa enforcer.

He dispenses his orders to his sicarios or gunmen, along with hits of what appears to be cocaine.

Then, men with automatic weapos attack a nearby housing comple.

It's believed they were after a local leader of the rival Juarez cartel.

Eight people are murdered.

The Sinaloa hitmen occupy Creel for almost an hour.

Surprising, because this video was recorded by state security police.

Seven officers watch the entire attack from a nearby listening post, but never attempt to stop it.

They are too heavily outgunned.

At its height, the Sinaloa Cartel dominated large swaths of Mexico.

Creating a vast drug distribution network spanning six continents.

Even more remarkable, Guzmán helped build that empire during his first stint in maximum security prison, a place called Puente Grande.

MALCOLM: Chapo's modus operandi in Puente Grande was to, uh, very quickly corrupt everyone he needed to.

And he, he employed a secretary who would approach a guard or a janitor or a cook, and say, you know, "We, we would like you, you know, to work for us, to be with us.

" NARRATOR: Chapo Guzmán ran his businesses from prison for eight years.

Until a new Mexican law made the extradition of drug lords o the United States much easier.

MALCOLM: The understanding is that Chapo Guzmán in early 2001, in January decided, "I gotta go.

" NARRATOR: Mexico's top security official visited the prison, and concerned about corruption, ordered Guzmán moved.

MALCOLM: Later that night, at about, I think it was about 8:00 or 9:00 pm, the guards did their rounds; Chapo was allegedly in his cell.

El Chito, the young janitor, stopped by Chapo's cell with his laundry cart.

Put Chapo in.

Rolled him down the corridor to a door that had been left open, propped open by a shoe.

The security cameras had been cut.

To this day, no one knows who cut those cameras.

They had, there had to be official complicity.

El Chito allegedly rolled Chapo down the hall, through the open doors, down the corridors and past the guards, and put Chapo into the back of a Chevy and continued to drive off to Guadalajara.

NARRATOR: While others believe Chapo simply walked out the door, at the trial, Guzmán's lieutenant Dámaso Lopez Nuñez, testified he used the laundry cart.

When Mariana Van Zeller reported from Mexico ten years after this first escape, Guzmán was still on the run.

Authorities believed he was hiding in the western Sierra Madre mountains outside of Culiacán.

NARRATOR: These mountains may have provided Guzmán some shelter, but it was clear from his trial that corruption also played a role in keeping him and the Sinaloa Cartel free and in business.

Mayo Zambada's son testified that, in the 2000's, bribes to Mexican officials amounted to $1 million a month.

Mayo's brother claimed former top police officer Genaro Garcia Luna received payments totaling more than $6 million.

And a Colombian trafficker testified that Guzmán paid ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto $100 millio.

Both Garcia Luna and Peña Nieto denied the allegations.

Garcia Luna currently sits in jail in the US, awaiting trial on trafficking charges.

NARRATOR: The western Sierra Madre mountains, Sinaloa Mexico.

Perfect for hiding drug traffickers like Chapo Guzmán.

And perfect for growing cartel crops like marijuana and opium poppies.

When this was filmed in 2011, General Moisés Melo Garcia was in charge of the army garrison in Culiacán.

His soldiers were on the front lines of the government's war on drugs.

Their job, track down and destroy the fields of marijuana and opium poppies that have been a part of the local econoy for more than half a century.

MARIANA: So the General is explaining that this plantation right here, the street value for these drugs in the United States would be $1.5 million.

NARRATOR: In 2011, the profits from marijuana alone were immense.

In Sinaloa, a kilo was worth $60.

In the United States, 5,000.

In ten months, General Melo Garcia's troops destroyed 25,000 marijuana fields just like this one.

But they barely scratch the surface.

These mountains hide many thousands more.

NARRATOR: Since this was filme, legalization in parts of the United States has driven down marijuana profits.

(speaking in native language) MARIANA: So, they're doing now is that they're burning the marijuana plants here.

NARRATOR: But even then, the Sinaloa Cartel was already branching out into another more lucrative drug.

One that didn't require months to grow and couldn't be spotted by air.

A drug that was cheaper, highly addictive and hugely profitabl.

The alleged source of Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon's $205 million; Methamphetamine.

SCOTT: The Sinaloa federation and El Chapo personally saw methamphetamine as, uh, just a really lucrative new market that they could seize control of.

In a business sense, it's much the same way that Hewlett-Packard saw printer ink.

It was something that could be produced very cheaply.

Something that they could sell for a huge markup.

NARRATOR: This is the drug vaut at the army base in Culiacán.

NARRATOR: Mexican cartels currently dominate the US market.

Mexican meth is purer, cheaper, and accounts for most of what's sold in the United States.

Now the Sinaloa Cartel is applying the same model to opioids, moving away from plant-based heroin and becoming a major supplier of fentanyl in the US.

By 2011, fighting the cartels had become the full-time job of the army here in Culiacán.

And they confiscated thousands of weapons every month.

Many were typical of the narco life; Gold-plated and expensively decorated.

But ominously, the weapons the army encountered were getting deadlier all the time.

NARRATOR: By 2013, the army received reinforcements; The Mexican Marines.

Considered the least corruptible government force, the marines, or SEMAR, became the group for going after high value targets.

On the border, US law enforcement focused on a different challenge.

Stopping a multibillion-dollar enterprise intent on moving its product north.

MAN (over radio): Same group from the other night.

(radio chatter) NARRATOR: For decades, Mexican cartels have found creative was to get drugs to the US market.

Chapo Guzmán and the Sinaloa Cartel were famous for building million dollar tunnels under the border, much like the tunnel used for Guzmán's 2015 prison escape.

Most drugs, however, go a more direct route.

Through the 48 border crossings linking the US and Mexico.

Every day, over 23,000 vehicles and pedestrians enter the US here.

It's only the fifth busiest crossing between the two countries.

But in the late-2000's, it was number one in cocaine seizures.

And a main pipeline for the Sinaloa Cartel.

Most hard drugs go through border crossings.

And of the hundreds of tons of cocaine passing through the southwest border, perhaps 90% get through.

In the constant stream of border traffic, identifying smugglers is a nearly impossible task.

But in May of 2005, law enforcement managed to grab the smallest thread of evidence.

And over the next two years, knitted together a detailed picture of a major Sinaloa Cartel cocaine smuggling operation.

(sirens wailing) It all began with a routine traffic stop in the town of El Centro.

12 miles north of the Calexico crossing.

OFFICER: Any drugs or firearms?

SAWYER: He was extremely nervous, sweating profusely, his hands were shaking, carotid artery was pulsing.

NARRATOR: El Centro PD asked the Border Patrol to send a K-9 team.

SAWYER: We deployed a, a certified narcotics K-9 from the United States Border Patrol to check the exterior of the vehicle.

The dog alerted to the trunk.

NARRATOR: And inside, 25 kilos of cocaine.

But the real clue was sitting on the front seat.

SAWYER: So we started paying attention to the telephone and looking at some of the contacts that were in the telephone.

The names were all monikers or nicknames versus, you know, complete names.

NARRATOR: The discovery eventually led to wiretaps.

(overlapping chatter) Hundreds of wiretaps that spanned the entire country.

Law enforcement had stumbled upon a transportation cell of the Sinaloa Cartel.

OFFICER (over radio): Are there vehicles around him?

OFFICER 2: Yeah, I see him.

Making contact with them.

(radio chatter) NARRATOR: The investigation would eventually lead to more than 1,000 arrests across the United States.

And directly to a top Sinaloa Cartel lieutenant, Victor Emilio Cazares.

MARIANA: Wow!

NARRATOR: In this exclusive footage, you can see how Victor Emilio Cazares lived.

MARIANA: This is a huge compound; you can see a huge swimming pool, horse stables, and a big playground.

It's an enormous compound.

NARRATOR: The first thing that catches your eye is the family chapel at the front gate.

Then there's the main house wih an indoor-outdoor swimming poo.

The stables are for Cazares' collection of dancing horses.

An expensive lifestyle, but according to a US drug enforcement administration investigation, one he could easily afford.

RICHARD: Victor Emilio Cazares would have been among the highest paid executives in North America based on how much he earned in those two or three years, roughly 200, $250 million.

He's up there with the titans of Wall Street.

And the DEA estimates that over a two-year period he moved 40 tons of cocaine into the country.

NARRATOR: Cazares' drug smuggling operation began here, in Culiacán's central bus station.

Every day, buses left Culiacán for Mexicali on the US border, with 72 kilos of cocaine.

The passengers weren't carrying it.

And it wasn't in their luggage.

The cocaine was packed around the rims of the buses' rear tires.

When the bus arrived in Mexicali, it was taken to a warehouse owned by Carlos "Charley" Cuevas, the head of Cazares' transportation cell.

Hundreds of wiretaps and years of surveillance gave the DEA task force a detailed picture of how Cuevas smuggled the cocaine into the United States.

RICHARD: He eventually had about 30 to 40 people working for him.

Drivers, lookouts, recruiters, stash house operators, dedicated solely to getting the, the cocaine from Mexicali in Mexico across the border and up into the Los Angeles area.

NARRATOR: Cuevas outfitted a fleet of cars with secret compartments holding up to 50 kilos of cocaine.

The drugs were in what is called the load car, which is always followed by a lookout car.

Observers on the ground on both sides of the border report on the progress by cell phone.

(phone ringing) Once the load car crosses the border, another lookout car follows it all the way to Los Angeles.

The operation is designed to keep one team carefully insulated from another.

RICHARD: So there has to be a hand-off from one cell to the other.

They won't drive directly to the stash house.

NARRATOR: The load car drives to a fast food restaurant where the keys are handed to a member of the LA distribution cell.

The load is then taken to the stash house, where it is unloaded, weighed, repackaged, and sent to a warehouse operated by yet another cell.

RICHARD: Once they get to the warehouse, there's a 52-foot tractor-trailer waiting for them.

NARRATOR: The bricks of cocaine are packed into the refrigeration unit and the ceiling of the trailer as much as 300 kilos every tri.

RICHARD: And then two drivers will take off to New York driving around the clock.

NARRATOR: The Cazares operation supplied the Northeast.

Once the load reached New York, the cocaine was unloaded and the secret compartments were filled with cash for the return to Los Angeles.

As much as three and a half million dollars per trip.

The cash was then distributed to hundreds of associates.

Much of Cazares' profits found its way to money launderers and businesses from Tijuana to Culiacán.

Based on the extensive evidence against him, the Mexican government attempted to bring Cazares in.

RICHARD: Victor Emilio was spotted in downtown Culiacán.

There was a group that was set to arrest him, but he was surrounded by 20 to 30 bodyguards.

And at that point they had a decision to make.

Do we try to take him out here in broad daylight and risk a bloodbath?

Or do we let him go?

And they decided that they were basically, they were, they were outgunned and they let them go.

NARRATOR: After five years on the run, Cazares' was caught in 2012.

He'd undergone plastic surgery to make himself look younger.

He was extradited to the US in 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in priso.

Despite the takedown, the supply of Sinaloa Cartel cocaie to the US did not slow down.

The Cazares network was one among many along the border.

RICHARD: There's multiple cells operating as we speak right now.

Who knows? Dozen? Two dozen?

It keeps going. It never stops.

NARRATOR: By 2012, the authorities were also closing in on El Chapo.

And, like the Cazares cell, cell phones would be crucial to his capture.

NARRATOR: By the summer of 2013, Narco Mexico blew up on social media.

Accounts claiming to be those of the sons of Chapo Guzmán and his associate Mayo Zambada, and their sons' friends, posted selfies with exotic cat, gold plated guns and luxury cars.

Even an alleged picture or two of Chapo himself.

The Millennial generation meets narco culture.

This activity wasn't in keeping with the older generation's low-key nature.

But Twitter didn't bring Chapo Guzmán down, instant messaging did.

DOUGLAS: How can you take tons and tons of wholesale cocaine, get it up through Mexico, smuggle it across various border points of entry, without constant communication with the hundreds and hundreds of people involved in that process?

And not a few messages a day, but hundreds of messages a day.

And they weren't talking, they were sending encrypted messages and they thought the technology was safe.

NARRATOR: The Sinaloa Cartel was using Blackberry messenger.

And the US was reading their chats.

ANDREW: We begin to focus on Chapo's inner infrastructure.

From his wives, girlfriends, sons, family members, couriers facilitators pilots.

Sources of supply.

Everybody.

NARRATOR: Through wiretaps, the DEA, Homeland Security investigations, and others, began to map out Guzmán's communications networ.

ANDREW: Chapo had set up mirror structure to insulate himself from his, his workers.

NARRATOR: Ground operators would contact a set of cell phones called offices.

This is called first tier.

ANDREW: Your communication hits office five in Durango, Durango.

A guy that is sitting in an apartment with a device.

Copies and pastes that message and sends it up to another device.

NARRATOR: This second tier provides an additional buffer from the boss.

He then sends the message up to top tier, Chapo Guzmán's personal secretary and bodyguard who is with him 24/7.

ANDREW: So the secretary would receive the message and read it to Chapo.

And Chapo would state his response back and the secretary would send it on down the line again.

NARRATOR: The agents began to establish a pattern of life by tracking the locations of the top tier cell phones.

What they discovered was that Chapo was not living in a mountain hideout.

But in the heart of Culiacán.

ANDREW: He wasn't moving.

I mean, he would spend 90% of his time at his primary safe-house.

NARRATOR: To guard against leaks, only a select few US agents had this information.

No one in the Mexican government had been notified.

But it was now time to arm the operation.

ANDREW: We essentially walked across the street to the Mexican Marines, SEMAR, who were known as the, uh, the least corruptible, uh, within the Mexican government.

NARRATOR: Operation Gargoyle was born.

The team; a Mexican marine brigade and US agents from DEA, Homeland Security and US Marshals.

ANDREW: Chapo knew of our movements.

Knew of the Marine's movements into Sinaloa and he didn't leave that safe-house.

NARRATOR: With a bead on Chapo's location, the Mexican Marines moved in.

ANDREW: It took 'em ten to 15 minutes to get through steel reinforced doors.

Six inches thick.

They could see people up in the windows, lights were on, they looked out the blinds and then they quickly disappeared.

By the time the Marines entered the house, it was vacant.

They went into the bedroom, into the adjoining bathroom and found the tub propped up at a 45-degree angle with a tunnel underneath of it.

They could hear splashing from a very far distance.

And he was gone.

Chapo is on the run.

NARRATOR: Once again, it appeared that Chapo had slipped away.

The Mexican Marines and US agents stormed house after house, collecting cell phones, suspects and any other data that can lead them to Guzmán.

They found drug stashes, weapons, but not much in the way of bling; An expensive watch still in its box, and his personalized, "JGL," colt super.

A far cry from the famed excess of the narco lifestyle.

ANDREW: If you are a wanted man for 13 years, how flashy are you going to live?

NARRATOR: In the next few days, the team pieced together Guzmán's escape.

He had fled to Mazatlán with his secretary, Condor.

They now knew the city, but thy didn't have a cell phone number to pinpoint his exact location.

ANDREW: About a half hour out from Mazatlán, HSI comes through and finds the top tier number.

It's at a place called Miramar, a place that we dubbed Hotel Miramar.

Directly on the water.

I knew at that moment that we had him.

NARRATOR: Mazatlán, 5:30 am.

Mexican marines working with US agents dressed in uniforms, ski masks, and some carrying weapons, approached Miramar.

The target; Joaquin El Chapo Guzmán.

ANDREW: I could start to see the lights come on through the different floors.

We suspected that he was on the floor four.

They went to the door of 401.

Banged the door down, came inside and came into immediate contact with Condor.

They took him into custody.

They made their way through the room.

Chapo's wife was in there with his two twin daughters.

And his wife was yelling, "Don't kill him, don't kill him.

Don't kill him.

" And Chapo put down the rifle and they took him into custody with no shots fired.

(camera clicking) NARRATOR: After 13 years on the run, Guzmán was back in the hands of the Mexican authorities.

ANDREW: The cooperation was unprecedented at every single level.

There was no other way to do this.

We had the intelligence.

They had the enforcement tool to conduct an operation.

Look how successful that was.

It's about how two countries came together and accomplished something most thought was impossible.

NARRATOR: But just a year and a half later, Guzmán made his tunnel escape from maximum security prison.

He would not, however, remain free for long.

After a six-month pursuit, the Mexican Marines caught up to him in the Sinaloan coastal town of Los Mochis.

(speaking in native language) NARRATOR: Amazingly, he would escape again by tunnel before eventually being arrested for good.

A year later in January 2017, Guzmán was extradited to the United States.

November 2018, New York.

(sirens wailing) A security convoy shuts down traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

USA v. Joaquin Archivaldo Guzmán Loera was underway.

The charges included drug trafficking, murder conspiracy, and money laundering.

NARRATOR: The prosecutors employed 25 years of evidence, to connect Guzmán to every aspect of the drug trade.

NARRATOR: Cooperating witnesse, including the brother and son f cartel co-leader Mayo Zambada, major Colombian cocaine suppliers, and US wholesale buyers...

NARRATOR: Helped tie the case together in exchange for reduced sentences.

NARRATOR: One protected witness provided breathtaking audio of Guzmán's operations.

NARRATOR: In 2011, Rodriguez gave the FBI access to the encrypted network he'd designed for Guzmán.

Hundreds of calls and texts...

Capturing cocaine buys from FARC Guerrillas in Colombia.

NARRATOR: And a possible reference to "Mayo" Zambada, "The M.

" NARRATOR: The corruption of a commander in Mexico's federal ministerial police.

NARRATOR: And even drug tunnel projects.

NARRATOR: Over 35 days of testimony, the defense attacked the credibility of the star witnesses and highlighted government corruption.

NARRATOR: In the end, Guzmán was found guilty on all counts...

MAN: On all counts.

NARRATOR: And sentenced to life plus 30 years.

MAN 2: El Chapo was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

NARRATOR: He now sits in the United States' most secure prison in Florence, Colorado.

His tunneling days appear to be over.

NARRATOR: Since Mexico declared war on drug cartels in 2006, plenty of cartel kingpins, including Chapo Guzmán, have fallen.

Yet murders have skyrocketed to four times what they were annually in 200.

NARRATOR: The US remains the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs.

The drug war, and the drug trafficking, continue.