El Chapo Trial: Gore, Graft and More of What We’ve Learned So Far - The New York Times

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The drug conspiracy trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican crime lord known as El Chapo, has been something like a marathon of sprints: Four days a week, for nearly two months, a Shakespearean cast of witnesses has appeared in court and told the epic tale of how Mr. Guzmán rose from living in poverty in the mountains of Sinaloa, Mexico, to become one of the richest — and most ruthless — drug dealers in the world.

The trial, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, paused just before Christmas and resumes on Thursday morning. It is expected to last for another month or two and is likely to proceed at the same grueling pace.

Here, in advance of the trial's second half, is a brief recap of the testimony so far:

· During Mr. Guzmán's early days as a young, ambitious trafficker, witnesses testified, the nascent kingpin struck up a partnership with Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía, his first supplier of Colombian cocaine.

· In describing the inner workings of Mr. Guzmán's organization, the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of the crime lord's operations chiefs, Jesús Zambada García, presented a kind of master class on the cartel, detailing its transportation methods, financing techniques and major players.

· Mr. Zambada also accused one of Mexico's top former law enforcement officers, Genaro García Luna, of having twice accepted briefcases stuffed with cartel cash. Apparently, Mr. García Luna was not alone. The trial has suggested that corruption in Mexico is as bad, if not worse, than many thought.

· On the first day of the trial, Mr. Guzmán's lawyers told jurors they would soon hear evidence that both the "current and former presidents" of Mexico had taken bribes from the cartel. But Judge Brian M. Cogan ultimately stopped that testimony from being heard.

· Bloodshed has been a major theme. New evidence has shed light on one of the most notorious murders in modern Mexican history: Witnesses described how in 1993 Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo was gunned down, accidentally, by a team of cartel killers at the Guadalajara airport. Their intended target: Mr. Guzmán.

· Some of the most damning evidence against Mr. Guzmán has been secret recordings of him conducting drug deals. The jurors have heard two so far; more may be coming.

· Mr. Guzmán, often portrayed as a gun-loving hothead, also lived in luxury. Among his narco-spoils: a $10 million beach house in Acapulco, a fleet of private jets and a rural ranch with a zoo where guests could ride a train past lions, crocodiles and bears.

· A sharper portrait of the cartels has also emerged. Though cartels are often thought of as highly structured, vertically organized entities, testimony in the trial has depicted them as chaotic groups composed of warring factions — like something out of "Game of Thrones."

Federal drug agents, cartel killers and accountants

A wide cast of characters have testified at the trial. Here are some of the most prominent:

Jesús Zambada García was an accountant who joined the Sinaloa cartel under his brother, Ismael Zambada García, and handled cartel expenses for two decades. He oversaw the influential Mexico City market before eventually being arrested in October 2008. Mr. Zambada was meticulous in keeping track of cartel finances, which he demonstrated to jurors in detailed testimony.

Miguel Angel Martínez was a former lieutenant for Mr. Guzmán. The government took his security so seriously that court artists were prohibited from drawing an accurate representation. Following his arrest in 1998, Mr. Martínez sold a home owned by Mr. Guzmán in order to pay legal fees, which caused him to fall out of favor with his boss. As a result, Mr. Martínez faced four attempts on his life — three stabbings and a fourth by a double-grenade attack.

Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía, a leader within the North Valley Cartel in Colombia, provided the jury with a window into the supply-side of operations, walking them through ledgers documenting pivotal deals between his cartel and El Chapo's Sinaloa cartel, which partnered for almost two decades. Mr. Ramírez went to great lengths to avoid incarceration, undergoing several extensive surgeries, altering his cheekbones, jaw, eyes, mouth, nose and ears. Still, he was arrested in Brazil in 2007 and later extradited to the United States.

Jorge Cifuentes's humble upbringing in Colombia paralleled Mr. Guzmán's origin story. Working alongside his parents and siblings, Mr. Cifuentes built a family drug empire, amassing great wealth and cartel connections. Mr. Cifuentes admitted in court to being a liar and a cheater. He said he once created a foundation with a stated mission of preserving jungle in the Amazon, but that was actually intended to funnel $1.5 billion in environmental contracts to companies he owned.

Born in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Chicago, Ill., Pedro Flores helped translate drug deals for his father when he was around 7 or 8 years old. (He was the first star witness to testify in English.) Mr. Flores and his twin brother, Margarito, took over the family business as teenagers. Business boomed after he made contact with one of Mr. Guzmán's associates — turning Chicago into an epicenter of American drug trafficking operations for the Sinaloa cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization, which then worked hand in hand.

'The biggest prize'

Here is a sampling of some of the more memorable quotes so far from the trial:

Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman: "The conviction of Joaquín Guzmán is the biggest prize this prosecution could dream of and they've been dreaming of it for a decade."

Mr. Zambada: "One of my responsibilities was to corrupt officials in the city," he said, adding that they would build off friendships already in place within the police department. "This is done through bribes, money, especially U.S. dollars."

Mr. Martínez: "I said to him, 'Why kill people?' And he answered me: 'Either your mom's going to cry or their mom's going to cry.'"

Mr. Martínez on Mr. Guzmán's reason for obsessively wiretapping his associates: "The most important thing in that environment was to know what everyone was thinking about you — whoever: your friends, our enemies, your compadres — whoever."

Mr. Ramírez on his initial impression of El Chapo: "It was the first time that a Mexican trafficked my cocaine that quickly. I didn't expect it that quickly."

Mr. Flores on the importance of location in drug trafficking: "The farther you get from the border, the higher the price of cocaine. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward."

Mr. Flores on his first meeting with El Chapo in May 2005: "I had this idea in my head about how it would be," he said, saying he'd pictured El Chapo lining up and shooting people. El Chapo replied in a serious tone, "No, only the ones we have to."

What's next?

Testimony in the second half of the trial is likely to include:

· Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Mr. Guzmán's partner, Ismael Zambada García, who will arguably be the most senior cartel figure ever to have testified at major trafficking trial. As a top logistics officer for Mr. Guzmán and his father, Mr. Niebla, who has been in American custody since 2010, will likely offer the jury a sweeping and encyclopedic view of the cartel's operations.

· Mr. Guzmán's two famous jailbreaks, the first in 2001 when he escaped in a laundry cart, and the second in 2014 when his associates dug a mile-long tunnel into the shower in his cell. Dámaso López Núñez, a former official at the Puente Grande prison who helped with the kingpin's first escape, is a possible witness.

· The bloody wars Mr. Guzmán fought in the latter years of his career. In one war, Mr. Guzmán battled with the Zetas, an especially violent rival cartel founded by members of the Mexican special forces. In another, he fought against his close allies (and cousins) the Beltrán-Leyva brothers.