El Chapo ‘ordered hits on his OWN FAMILY and used gold-plated AK47s and diamond-encrusted handgun to terrify his rivals’
RUTHLESS cartel boss Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman ordered hits on his own family during his bloody reign as the world's biggest drugs trafficker since Pablo Escobar, a court heard.
The Mexican drugs lord was described as a ruthless criminal boss whose weapons of choice included a diamond-encrusted pistol and a gold-plated AK-47.
He is currently in the dock in New York where he faces 11 trafficking, firearms and money laundering charges. The high-profile trial is expected to last four months and cost £38m.
The hearing opened with the prosecutor telling jurors how his modest marijuana-selling business transformed into a blood-drenched smuggling operation that funnelled cocaine throughout the US.
Assistant US Attorney Adam Fels told a jury that Guzman "sent killers to wipe out competitors," and "waged wars against longtime partners ... including his own cousins."
Guzman - who faces life in prison - has pleaded not guilty to charges he amassed a multi-billion-dollar fortune smuggling tonnes of cocaine and other drugs north of the Mexican border.
Fels claimed jurors would see evidence of drug shipments adding up to “more than a line of cocaine for every single person in the United States”.
While he is not on trial for murder, prosectors contend he ordered or committed at least 33 homicides and they say they will show how "Guzman pulls the trigger."
The feared Sinaloa Cartel boss waved to his beauty queen wife Emma Coronel when he spotted her in court.
Prosecutors have said they will use thousands of documents, videos and recordings as evidence -including material related to the drug smugglers' infamous 2015 prison escape.
Fels told how Guzman started modestly in the early 1970s by selling marijuana in Mexico, but built his reputation by constructing tunnels across the Mexico-US border.
He said Guzman was eventaully able to shift drugs so fast he was "no longer El Chapo, the short one."
Instead, he became known as "the speedy one." Before his tunnels, it had taken weeks to move drugs across the border to the US.
Before long, Guzman was receiving 10 to 15 planes "stuffed with cocaine" from Colombia at landing strips in Mexico for transport to cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, Fels said.
As his business flourished using the tunnels, trains, planes and vessels, Guzman began taking aim at rivals in the early 1990s, leading to bloody wars.
In 1993, he fled to Guatemala but was captured and imprisoned in Mexico for eight years, where he continued running his drug empire, Fels said.
The prosecutor spoke of two dramatic escapes from prison by Guzman and said he was planning a third when he was brought to the US
The shocking claims made by the US Department of Justice in pre-trial documents
- Guzman started as a teenager cultivating marijuana and growing poppies for heroin production
- He went on to become the leader of the "the worlds most prolific drug trafficking organisation"
- El Chapo infamously carried a gold-plated AK-47 assault rifle and a diamond-encrusted pistol
- In 2001, he escaped prison purportedly in a laundry cart with the assistance of prison officials
- He escaped again in 2015, from a maximum security prison via a tunnel more than a mile long
- Guzman's enforcers were tasked with a wide-range of murder, assault, kidnappings and torture
- One oassassin ran a 'murder house' with plastic walls and a hole in he floor to drain he blood
- A rival was once gunned down "using so many rounds of ammunition" his head nearly came off
- The reach of his empire was vast driving him to establish suppliers in Africa, China and India
Fels said Guzman used some of his wealth to pay off the Mexican military and police and to finance assault rifles, grenade launchers and explosives to engage in "war after bloody war."
More than a dozen cooperating witnesses are scheduled to testify, including some who worked for Guzman's cartel.
Prosecutors say they risk retribution by taking the stand and the court has taken steps to conceal their identities and US District Judge Brian Cogan barred courtroom sketch artists from drawing them.
Guzman's lawyers are expected to attack the credibility of the witnesses by emphasising their criminal records, saying some have an incentive to lie to win leniency in their own cases.
One of Guzman's attorneys, Eduardo Balarezo, has suggested that he hopes to convince jurors Guzman wasn't actually in charge of the cartel but was a lieutenant taking orders from someone else.
MOST READ IN WORLD NEWS
In Mexico, news stories about Guzman's trial have been prominent in the media even though it's viewed by some as old history.
"He is totally isolated. He cannot approach anyone. His wife was not even able to approach him. So he is now out of the game," Benitez said, referring to an order by the judge banning Guzman's wife from hugging him in the courtroom during the trial.
Whether he is out for good will be decided by an anonymous jury of 12 men and women who will decide the case. The trial is expected to last into next year