“El Chapo”, a.k.a. Joaquin Guzman, has reportedly been killed in a bloody shootout on the Guatemala border.
Guzman was head of the infamous Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico and was largely considered to be Chicago’s “Public Enemy Number 1”, as he used the city as his American hub. After years of heading a huge web of cocaine and heroin producers, Guzman was thought to have amassed a fortune of around $1 billion. After escaping from a Mexican prison in 2001, Guzman has been on the run and has been considered by law enforcement officials in Chicago as more dangerous and infamous than even Pablo Escobar, the famed drug lord of the 1980’s.
Witnesses to the gun battle this week–which allegedly occurred between rival drug gangs in the jungle surrounding Peten, Guatemala–say Guzman was among several killed, but officials haven’t confirmed that yet. They say they will conduct a thorough investigation of the area and have a copy of Guzman’s fingerprints to go on, but as of now, they haven’t even been able to confirm that a shootout even took place.
“We have to wait for all the technical information in order to determine if, in fact, one of the dead is of Joaquin `El Chapo’ Guzman,” government official Francisco Cuevas said.
Image: Damian Dovarganes