Los Mochis, Mexico. For years the world’s most wanted drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, used tunnels to smuggle billions of dollars’ worth of drugs into the United States and to evade capture – until Mexico’s government got wise to his game.

Six months after a brazen jailbreak worthy of Hollywood, escaping a maximum security prison through a mile-long tunnel from his cell, Mexico’s security forces turned the tables on Guzmán on Friday.

After tracking him down to a house in Los Mochis, in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa, Mexican Marines chased the head of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel and his chief assassin through a drain and then nabbed them as he tried to flee by car.

Security forces had identified a tunnel expert in Guzmán’s circle who was outfitting houses in Sinaloa, and that helped lead to the drug baron’s capture, Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez said.

“During the confrontation, Guzmán Loera managed to escape through the city’s drainage system, which had already been factored into the capture strategy,” Gomez said late on Friday, as Guzmán was whisked by helicopter to the same maximum security prison in central Mexico he broke out of in July.

Guzmán’s arrest is a major boost for President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was highly embarrassed by last year’s jailbreak, Guzmán’s second in 15 years.

It is also a shot in arm for relations between Mexico and the US government, heavily strained by last year’s escape.

Guzmán now faces the prospect of extradition to the United States to face drug smuggling charges.

The dramatic capture followed a six-month-long intelligence operation. Gomez said Guzmán was almost caught in October, when Marines in a helicopter zeroed in on him near a ranch in the rugged northern state of Durango.

But the kingpin was spied in the company of two women and a young girl, prompting the Marines to hold fire and allowing him to slip their grasp.

The encounter pushed Guzmán deeper into Mexico’s notorious “Golden Triangle,” where the bulk of the country’s opium and marijuana are produced, limiting his communications and cutting down his security detail to a small core.

But for reasons that are unclear, El Chapo had by December decided to hide out in cities. The tunnel-builder began outfitting homes across the northern states of Sinaloa and Sonora.

Authorities caught wind of it and began carefully watching a house in Los Mochis. They spotted unusual activity when a vehicle pulled up before dawn on Thursday, and intelligence officials confirmed Guzmán was on the property. The raid followed.

After chasing him through a drain and stopping his getaway car, the Marines took Guzmán and made an unscheduled stop – waiting for reinforcements at Hotel Doux, a love motel on the outskirts of town that rents out rooms for a few hours at a time.

Guzmán also slipped up, and his yearning for the silver screen helped bring him down.

“Another important aspect which helped locate him was discovering Guzmán’s intention to have a biographical film made. He contacted actresses and producers, which was part of one line of investigation,” Gomez said.

Reuters

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