Drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman ‘smuggled enough cocaine into America to provide one line for every single person in the country’
DRUG lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman smuggled enough cocaine into the US to provide one line for every American, a court heard.
The kingpin, 61, also used a private army of hundreds of armed thugs to enforce his rule and rub out rivals, it was said.
His hitmen would hunt down, kidnap, torture, interrogate, shoot and murder at his word, the jury was told.
even ordered the death of a cousin who he suspected of “co-operating with the authorities”, the opening of his trial was told.
Assistant US Attorney Adam Fels said jurors would see evidence of drug shipments adding up to “more than a line of cocaine for every single person in the United States”.
Mr Fels told a New York court Guzman rose from a low-level marijuana trafficker in the 1970s to lead the powerful Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
He said the defendant established relationships with Colombian cocaine cartels and made billions shipping the drug across the globe.
Jurors were told that Guzman, who had a cache of guns, shot two members of a rival group and ordered them thrown into holes and burned.
His firearms allegedly included a diamond-encrusted handgun bearing his initials and a gold-plated AK-47.
Mr Fels told the court: “Money, drugs, murder and a vast global narcotics trafficking organisation — that is what this case is about, and that is what the evidence in this case will prove.”
Guzman’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, claimed that his client was a scapegoat who “controlled nothing”.
He said Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was the cartel’s leader who, he said, bribed the government of Mexico.
He said even the president, Enrique Pena Nieto, took backhanders. Mr Nieto’s spokesman denied the claim.
Mr Lichtman urged jurors to “keep an open mind” and consider that both Mexican and US law enforcement could be corrupt.
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Guzman, who has twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, has been kept in solitary confinement in Manhattan.
His trial is surrounded by tight security with jurors escorted to and from court by armed federal marshals.
The opening statements in the trial were delayed by hours when two of the panel chosen last week dropped out. Guzman faces 17 charges and possible life in jail if convicted.
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