Mexico:
Considered the "most powerful drug trafficker in the world" by the United States Department of the Treasury, Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, popularly known as El Chapo Guzmán is a Mexican drug lord.
He is the head of Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal organisation named after the Mexican Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. El Chapo became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel was arrested.
From 2009 to 2011 El Chapo was ranked as one of the most powerful people in the world by Forbes magazine and stood at 41st, 60th and 55th respectively.
After Carlos Slim, he was the second most powerful man in Mexico. In 2011, he became the 10th richest man in Mexico (1,140th in the world) with a net worth of around US$1 billion.
The magazine has also called him the "biggest drug lord of all time". According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates he has surpassed the influence and reach of Pablo Escobar and considers him as "the godfather of the drug world".
El Chapo was named "Public Enemy Number One" by the Chicago Crime Commission in 2013 for the influence of his criminal network in Chicago. However there is no evidence that El Chapo has ever been in that city during that period.
El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel transports multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia through Mexico to the United States. It has distribution cells throughout the US. When El Chapo was arrested in 2014, he imported more drugs into the US than anyone else.
El Chapo was arrested in 1993 in Guatemala and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico on charges of murder and drug trafficking. He managed to escape from the prison in 2001. He was wanted by the governments of Mexico and the United States, and by INTERPOL.
He also had US$5 million reward on him for any information leading to his whereabouts, while the Mexican government offered a reward of 60 million pesos.
He was again arrested in Mexico on 22 February 2014. But, he escaped from prison again on July 11, 2015. He has now been captured again by Mexican Marines after a gun battle.
