Mexican Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’ Recaptured Months after Brazen Escape

Guzmán’s capture was the ­culmination of a furious ­manhunt that began when the drug lord tunneled out of a ­maximum-security prison nearly six months ago.

Friday’s operation took place in the Pacific town of Los Mochis, in Sinaloa state, the headquarters of Guzmán’s drug-trafficking cartel, which ships more cocaine and marijuana to the United States than any other cartel, plus more than half the heroin that reaches the country.

Members of the Mexican navy raided a home after a tip about gunmen inside, setting off a shootout that also injured one of the Mexican marines, according to a military statement reported by the Associated Press.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, center, congratulates Defense Secretary General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, right, and Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong after his speech in Mexico City about "El Chapo” being recaptured. (AFP/Getty Images)

“Mission accomplished: we have him,” President Enrique Peña Nieto wrote on Twitter. “I want to inform the Mexicans that Joaquín Guzmán . . . has been captured.”

The news was an immediate boost to Peña Nieto, who has struggled with corruption scandals, drug violence and the humiliation of the escape last year by Mexico’s most famous prisoner. Peña Nieto, speaking later Friday in a televised address from the national palace, shared the credit with Mexico’s armed forces and intelligence services.

With Guzmán’s capture, the president said, 98 of Mexico’s 122 most wanted criminals had been killed or captured.

This picture released by the Mexican website Plaza de Armas shows Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán recaptured in a hotel in Los Mochis, Mexico. Mexican marines recaptured the fugitive drug kingpin six months after his spectacular prison break embarrassed authorities. (AFP/Getty Images)

Since the billionaire drug lord escaped last year, he had grown into a fugitive of epic proportions in the public imagination. He had broken out of a Mexican prison twice in the past two decades and seemed capable of outwitting authorities at every turn. During his latest period on the lam there were only sporadic reports of his whereabouts, including rumors that he had injured his leg fleeing one of many military operations to find him.

The arrest confirmed what many Chapo-watchers assumed, that he would not flee Mexico but would return to his home state, where he would have protection from residents, corrupt local police and his extensive cartel network.

Around his home town, in the remote Sierra Madre mountains of eastern Sinaloa, checkered with plots of marijuana and opium poppy, residents have often praised Guzmán for his ­largesse, which included giving them jobs and medical care and even air-dropping bags of money from Cessnas into peasant ­villages.

El Chapo" after being recaptured in Los Mochis. Plaza de Armas. (AFP/Getty Images)

But like the first time he was recaptured, in a 2014 raid on his condominium in the beach resort city of Mazatlan, he was caught on the coast Friday — this time after a battle near a two-story white house on a residential street of Los Mochis, with a palm tree out front, televised images show.

Early-morning gun battle

A neighbor who lives about two blocks from the house, in an upper-middle-class subdivision, said by telephone that the commotion started about 3:40 am. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns, the neighbor said she heard gunfire and what she assumed to be bombs, and rushed to a windowless room inside her house for safety.