Phone clues led to drug lord and secret tunnels

After fruitlessly pursuing one of the world’s leading drug lords for years, police finally drew close to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman using a mobile phone found at a house where drugs were stored.

The phone, belonging to a Guzman aide, was recovered with clues from a US wiretap.

Another wiretap pointed police to a beachfront flat in Mexico where the Sinaloa cartel leader was hiding. When taken into custody with his beauty-queen wife, Guzman had an assault rifle in the room, but he did not go for it.

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A day after the arrest, it was not yet clear what would happen next to Guzman, except that he would be the focus of a lengthy and complicated legal process.

The mobile phone was found on February 16 at the house Guzman had been using in Culiacan. It led them to a courier who provided details of the houses Guzman and his associates had been using.

At each house, the Mexican military found the same thing – steel reinforced doors and an escape hatch below the bathtubs. Each hatch led to a series of interconnected tunnels.

Now 56, the billionaire’s drugs cartel supplied 54 countries and he is also wanted by US courts.

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