‘El Chapo’ Guzmán blames government for ‘violent crimes’ in Mexico
The former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, who has been serving a life sentence in the US since 2019, has sent another letter requesting extradition
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has blamed the Mexican government for “all the violent crimes” and has insisted on his extradition in a new letter sent to Judge Brian Cogan. This new request from the once most wanted man in the world comes just a couple of days after he delivered another letter in which he requested “fair treatment under the law” and “to be transferred” to Mexico to face the pending charges against him. The judge responded to the previous message in a statement, denying his requests because he considered them unreasonable.
According to information released on Thursday by the Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York, on May 1, Guzmán sent another handwritten letter in English in which he insisted on his extradition. In this new text, the drug lord argues that all the violent crimes he is accused of “are based on a single witness.” “The Mexican government was responsible for all the violent crimes,” he wrote. “They blamed me for things I didn’t do, all because of who I am.”
“I was known in my country not for bad things. The good things I have done in Mexico are wanting family to eat together and have a great life,” another excerpt of the letter reads.
The violence during the years when El Chapo led the Sinaloa Cartel was marked by its extremity, strategic intent, and high impact, setting a before‑and‑after moment in the history of drug trafficking in Mexico. During his trial in the United States, prosecutors presented evidence and testimony linking him directly to the killings of rivals, traitors, and members of opposing cartels.
The cartel leader has been serving a life sentence since 2019 for multiple drug‑related crimes and has been held ever since at ADX Florence, the federal super‑maximum prison in Colorado. According to the judge’s response letter, he received up to five requests from Guzmán in the past two weeks. “Some of these documents make no sense, and none of them have any legal merit. They are all accordingly denied,” reads a section of the document signed by Judge Cogan.
In another letter, sent just two weeks ago, Guzmán requested the “protection” of his human rights as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The drug lord asked that the First and Eighth Amendments be applied to him. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, while the Eighth Amendment prohibits the government from inflicting cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment. In that letter, he argued: “The emerging of the constitution laws in the court of law have the rights to connect and be use for my equal protection on my rights.”
The last time those close to the former Sinaloa Cartel leader spoke out about his conditions was this past February. At the time, his lawyer Mariel Colón told the Mexican newspaper Reforma that her client had lost a significant amount of weight and had suffered episodes of tachycardia in recent months. “He is being held in extremely harsh conditions of confinement; in my opinion, they are inhumane and violate the U.S. Constitution. They are cruel,” she said.
El Chapo was arrested in Mexico in January 2016, after two spectacular prison escapes. The most recent, from the Altiplano maximum‑security facility in July 2015, was worthy of a Hollywood production: a tunnel equipped with ventilation, lighting, oxygen tanks, and rails for a motorcycle led directly to his cell, triggering a political crisis for then‑president Enrique Peña Nieto’s government. His final capture ended his criminal career. In 2017, he was extradited to the United States, where he has repeatedly denounced the extreme isolation he is subjected to. These same conditions are applied to terrorists.
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