Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Jewish Business News

Business

Sean Penn Secretly Interviewed ‘El Chapo, ’ Mexican Drug Lord

Details of how Joaquin Guzman was captured thanks to meeting with Hollywood star emerge as Mexican authorities prepare to extradite drug baron to the US

 

Sean Penn interviews fugitive drug lord Joaquin Guzman -Rolling Stone

 

In October 2015, weeks before his capture, while he was evading authorities following an escape from a Mexican prison last year, Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman secretly met with Hollywood star Sean Penn for an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

The raid of Guzmán’s residence in Mexico resulted in serious gunfire and left five suspects dead. Six suspects from the compound were also arrested. According to Mexican authorities, the raid was the work of six months of investigation and they initially were planning on storming Guzmán’s hideout in October – the same month Penn visited the cartel head – but decided to abort the mission because Guzmán was with women and children.

Please help us out :
Will you offer us a hand? Every gift, regardless of size, fuels our future.
Your critical contribution enables us to maintain our independence from shareholders or wealthy owners, allowing us to keep up reporting without bias. It means we can continue to make Jewish Business News available to everyone.
You can support us for as little as $1 via PayPal at office@jewishbusinessnews.com.
Thank you.

The head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, met Penn multi times in the Mexican wilderness jungle on top of a mountain, where they were surrounded by 100 of his henchmen as they spoke.

Their interview was the first Guzman had given in decades, and it marks the first time he has admitted to operating a drugs empire, while he told Penn that he does not consider himself a violent person. In Interview after a previous arrest in 1993, he had insisted he was just a farmer growing corn and beans.

Guzman told Penn in a video recording he had tried drugs but isn’t a drug addict and hadn’t taken any drugs in the last 20 years, the report says. He started to grow and sell marijuana and poppies at the age of 15 to survive, he said, according to the report

In Rolling Stone he said: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, aeroplanes, trucks and boats.”

He tells Penn that he had only started growing marijuana and poppies because there was no other way for his impoverished family to survive, and although his cartel has killed hundreds of people, he denies he’s violent.

 

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman recaptured,   Los Mochis,   Mexico - 08 Jan 2016

“Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more, ” he says. “But do I start trouble? Never.”

Guzman also refuses to accept that he is responsible for the deaths of millions through drugs, telling Penn that even if he died, the world’s drug supply would continue.

Dressed in a bright blue silk shirt and black jeans, Guzman is also filmed in a video for the magazine by actor Kate del Castillo, who herself once played a drug kingpin in a US television series.

Penn apparently got involved in the interview through Ms del Castillo, whom Guzman had approached to make a Hollywood movie about his life.

During the seven hours of interviews, in which the men discuss topics ranging from drug trafficking to Middle East politics, Guzman tells Penn that he had tried drugs but had never been an addict.

He admits: “Drugs destroy. Unfortunately where I grew up there was no other way and there still isn’t a way to survive, no way to work in our economy to be able to make a living.”

The Rolling Stones account also provides more details on Guzman’s escape from prison in July, when he slipped through a hole in the shower of his prison cell into a kilometre long tunnel in a devastating blow for Mexican authorities.

Penn writes that a team of engineers had been flown to Germany for special training to dig the tunnel while a motorbike on rails had been modified to run in the low-oxygen environment.

A Mexican law enforcement official said Guzman’s secret interview with the actor had helped authorities locate his whereabouts.

Mexico Attorney General Arely Gomez said the drug baron’s contact with Penn and del Castillo for a biopic had led authorities to Guzman. He said they had previously traced him to a rural part of Durango state in October but aorted their raid at the time because he was with two women and a child.

Mexico today expressed its willingness to extradite Guzman to the US in a reversal of its previous position. It is expected that he will be extradited within six months.

In the Rolling Stone video, Guzman is asked if he thinks authorities want him dead. He disagrees, saying they would just send him back to prison.

“I know one day I will die, ” he says. “I hope it’s of natural causes.”

 

READ MORE Sean Penn

Sean-Penn-and-Charlize-Theron-Getty-Emmanuelle Vaugier,   11

The 54-year-old Hollywood actor parted ways with the leggy 39-year-old beauty after nearly a year and a half together. But the newly-single Oscar-winner apparently took CSI: NY starlet Emmanuelle More…

Sean Penn and Charlize Theron - Getty - 2

Good news ladies! Sean Penn is on the market again. He and fellow Oscar winner Charlize Theron have called it quits. The Hollywood power couple had been together since December 20013 and reportedly separated More…

The Gunman

The Gunman is Sean Penn’s first action movie role in nearly ten years, but he and Charlize Theron made a repeat role, this time, with an additional appearance as a couple. At the premiere of the film, Sean More…

This World Jewish Values Network Second Annual Gala Dinner

Two time Oscar winning actor Sean Penn is reportedly considering adopting the son of his current girlfriend Oscar winning actress Charlize Theron. Man if these two were to have a baby together it would surely grow More…

Jacob Ostreicher

Jacob Ostreicher, the Orthodox Jewish businessman who suffered brutal imprisonment in Bolivia on trumped up charges, is living a nightmare, but the man who rescued him, Sean Penn, whose paternal grandparents were More…

Sean Penn The Gunman

Sean Penn may be a two time Oscar winner, but his latest movie was a misfire at the box office over the weekend. “The Gunman” only took in $5 million. One wonders what Penn was thinking when he decided to More…

Newsletter



Advertisement

You May Also Like

World News

In the 15th Nov 2015 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:   ·         A new Israeli treatment brings hope to relapsed leukemia...

Entertainment

The Movie The Professional is what made Natalie Portman a Lolita.

Travel

After two decades without a rating system in Israel, at the end of 2012 an international tender for hotel rating was published.  Invited to place bids...

VC, Investments

You may not become a millionaire, but there is a lot to learn from George Soros.