El Chapo charts Guzman’s journey from a low-level gang member to the world’s most wanted drug lord.
As head of the Sinaloa Cartel, Guzman smuggled unimaginable quantities of drugs from Mexico into the US.
In 1993 he was arrested and imprisoned in Mexico, but he escaped eight years into a 20 year sentence.
Guzman was on the run for 13 years before he was captured in 2014.
He was imprisoned again, but escaped for a second time – this time evading authorities for just six months.
In January, Guzman was extradited to the US to face charges related to his running of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Authorities are seeking the “forfeiture of more than $ 14 billion in drug proceeds and illicit profits” from him.
In a statement released on January 20, 2017, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said: “Guzman is the alleged leader of a multi-billion dollar, multi-national criminal enterprise that funnelled drugs onto our streets and violence and misery into our communities.”
The Department of Justice has accused Guzman of overseeing an operation which trafficked at least 200 tons of cocaine into the US. He is currently awaiting trial.
“Guzman is accused of using violence, including torture and murder, to maintain an iron-fisted grip on the drug trade across the U.S./Mexico border that invaded our community and others across the country,” US Attorney Robert Capers said in the statement.
“As a result, Guzman made billions of illicit dollars.”
Authorities have not explained how they calculated the $ 14 billion sum.
David Gaddis, a former chief of enforcement operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said that the number is a “is a cumulative figure and based on his drug trafficking enterprise”.
Bruce M Bagley, an expert on Mexico’s drug trade at the University of Miami, has suggested that $ 14 billion is most likely a “cumulative calculation”, but is still “too high”.
He told Forbes: “The drug business may earn Mexican drug lords up to $ 20 billion or so a year. Much of that money goes into operations and protection.
“El Chapo probably makes well below a billion per year.”
Bagley “guesstimated” Guzman’s net worth at between $ 2 billion and $ 4 billion.
In 2009, Forbes included the drug lord on its billionaire list for the first time.
He remained on the list for four consecutive years and was named the 10th richest man in Mexico in 2011, with an estimated net worth of $ 1 billion
Guzman was dropped from the list in 2013, shortly before his second arrest.
Forbes explained that it was unable to reach the drug lord – who was on the run in Mexico – to verify its figures.
“As the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, he is one of the most powerful people in the world, but no longer someone we are confident enough to call a billionaire” it wrote at the time.
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