The former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán has been transferred to a maximum security federal prison in the US state of Colorado on Friday, his lawyer confirmed.
“He’s here, he’s just arrived,” said Jeffrey Lichtman, attorney for ‘El Chapo’, in statements given to the local newspaper ‘The Denver Post’. The ‘narco’ has entered a prison in Florence known as ‘the Alcatraz of the Rocky Mountains’.
‘El Chapo’ was sentenced on Wednesday to life imprisonment for introducing large quantities of drugs into the country. He was sentenced for eight counts of drug trafficking and organized crime, 30 years in prison for carrying arms and another 20 years in prison for money laundering.
The main charge is that of a crime of drug trafficking continued for 25 years. It is estimated that at this time he moved 528,276 kilos of cocaine, 423,000 kilos of marijuana and 202 kilos of heroin.
This judicial decision put an end to more than two years of trial and almost three months of trial in which they have declared 56 witnesses of the US Government and only one of the defense.
Despite this, the Mexican ‘narco’, who spoke for thirteen minutes translated by an interpreter, rejected the sentence and the sentence, assuring that “there was no justice”.
He also denounced that he has received “cruel and inhumane” treatment because he has spent the entire process in solitary confinement, which, as the defense denounced at the time, has caused him physical and psychological damage.
THE ALCATRAZ OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
‘El Chapo’ was extradited to the United States in January 2017, after escaping up to twice from maximum security prisons in Mexico, the first in 2001 and the second in 2015. A year later he was finally detained.
As part of the extraordinary security measures that have marked the trial of ‘El Chapo’, the jurors have come to the New York court escorted and their identities have been kept secret.
Now, he is expected to serve his sentence in the ADX maximum security prison in Colorado, known as the ‘Rocky Mountain Alcatraz’, where no one has escaped.
The Mexican ‘narco’, 62, rose to the position of the most wanted criminal in the United States after the death of former Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden in 2011.
The Sinaloa Cartel is still the leading drug distributor in the United States among the Mexican cartels, followed by the rapid growth of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, according to the DEA. (EUROPA PRESS)
