About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 2018)
8A Monday, December 3, 2018 The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com NATION ‘El Chapo’ trial gives inside look at rise to power U.S. LAW ENFORCEMENT, AUTHORITIES I Associated Press Authorities escort Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, center, from a plane to a waiting caravan of SUVs at Long Island MacArthur Airport, in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., Jan. 19, 2017. On Monday, Nov. 26, a government witness testifying at the U.S. trial of the Mexican drug lord known as “El Chapo” claims his cartel paid massive bribes to a top law enforcement official. BY TOM HAYS Associated Press NEW YORK — The U.S. trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has offered a screenplay-worthy pic ture of the lawlessness and excesses during his rise to power as Mexico’s most infa mous drug lord. Since the trial got under way on Nov. 13, witnesses have described how Guz man used tunnels dug under the border and fake jala- peno cans to smuggle tons of cocaine into the United States during the 1990s and early 2000s. The Sinaloa cartel, some times referred to by insid ers as “The Federation,” made hundreds of millions of dollars, most of it in U.S. currency collected in such volume it had to be stashed in safe houses while the gang figured out what to do with it. Guzman spent some of it on a private zoo, a diamond- encrusted pistol and paying off police and politicians. That’s all according to a cast of characters who have taken the witness stand ranging from former cartel members to a Colombian drug kingpin with a freakish face that he chose to alter with plastic surgery in a failed attempt to stay under the radar. Here’s a look at some tes timony highlights from the trial, which is expected to last until early next year: SMUGGLING BY THE TON The Sinaloa cartel had many crafty ways to smug gle drugs across the border, but perhaps none were craft ier than La Comadre brand pepper cans. Former cartel member Miguel Angel Martinez tes tified in federal court in Brooklyn he helped super vise a warehouse in Mexico City where workers hid cocaine in the cans so it could be trucked over the border. The trucks carried 3,000 cans at a time to Los Ange les, he said. He estimated about 25 to 30 tons of cocaine worth $400 to $500 million got across the border each year. Behind the scenes, the workers packing the coke into the cans “got intoxi cated because whenever you would press the kilos, it would release cocaine into the air.” Proceeds ended up in Tijuana, where Guzman would send his three private jets every month to pick it up, Martinez said. On aver age, each plane would carry up to $10 million home. The cash, he said, helped pay for luxuries like an Aca pulco beach house featuring a private zoo and a trip to Switzerland for Guzman to get an exotic “anti-aging” treatment. BRIBERY AS USUAL A turncoat cartel member named Jesus Zambada took the stand to describe how he kept watch over tons of cocaine stashed in a Mexico City warehouse. But a more important job for him was buying off authorities at a cost of about $300,000 a month — a price that earned Guzman a police escort after one of his notorious escapes from prison. He testified that Guzman looked troubled at the sight of the Mexico City police approaching the car. “Don’t worry about it,” Zambada told Guzman. “These are our people. No one is going to touch us from here on out.” Testimony suggested the prisons were on the take, too. Martinez claimed when he and Guzman visited a drug boss behind bars, other inmates had put together a lavish meal. “There was a music group and they had everything, whatever you would want to eat. Whiskey, cognac,” Martinez said. “You could choose between lobster and sirloin and pheasant.” THE MASK The latest star witness for the government has been more notable for his appear ance than his testimony. Former Colombian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia is perhaps best known for his plastic surgery. He told the jury last week that he has had at least three surgeries to change his appearance. The work altered “my jawbone, my cheekbones, my eyes, my mouth, my ears, my nose,” he said. His testimony made a case for ranking him at the top of the narco-patheon with Guz man: He said he smuggled 881,840 pounds, ordered 150 killings and amassed a fortune so large that he forfeited $1 billion after his arrest in Brazil in 2007. Ramirez Abadia said he had a cartel business model that included a divi sion entirely devoted to using drug money to bribe authorities to “not do their jobs” to enforce drug laws. 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