The trial of notorious drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman continues in Brooklyn, New York, and is expected to last into early next year.

This is the first time a major Mexican drug kingpin has been tried in a US court and pleaded not guilty.

Guzman, 61, faces a 17 count indictment that covers nearly three decades of alleged criminal activities. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Follow updates on the ongoing trial below  

2018-12-13T00:00:47.000Z

Cifuentes will be back to testify tomorrow morning, with a cross-examination from El Chapo's lawyer.

2018-12-12T23:20:47.000Z
VICE's Keegan Hamilton is at the courthouse, liveblogging Mr Cifuentes' testimony. Mr Cifuentes testifies during an anecdote that he once wanted to stop working with El Chapo to dedicate his life to a philanthropic organisation. However, his motivations were not completely pure. 
2018-12-12T22:45:47.000Z

Jorge Cifuentes continued to testify today, and admitted to being involved in several crimes himself. He said that he ordered three murders and attempted one murder himself by sprinkling cyanide over an arepa, which he expected the target to eat. However, the target ate a different arepa and survived the attempt.

2018-12-12T22:05:47.000Z

Jorge Cifuentes, a former employee of El Chapo, testified against him today, divulging deep secrets of the Sinaloa cartel. He explained the cartel's encrypted communication system, a 6-ton cocaine shipment from Ecuador to Mexico, and aborted plans to use an oil tanker to bring coke across the border.

2018-12-12T21:40:30.000Z

Jorge Cifuentes, who supplied Colombian cocaine to the Sinaloa Cartel, testified on Wednesday about how El Chapo discussed using Pemex oil tankers to bring cocaine from Ecuador to Mexico. However, he says that they did not ultimately use the trains for that reason.

2018-12-12T21:40:30.000Z
In 2017, Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas was murdered for his coverage of the Sinaloa cartel, VICE News explains. He had covered infighting that took place in the Sinaloa cartel after El Chapo was extradited, and was shot 12 times. 

The people who allegedly ordered the killing of Mr Cárdenas may receive reduced sentences for agreeing to testify against El Chapo, 

2018-12-12T21:09:37.046Z
One of El Chapo's former employees, Tirso Martinez Sanchez, testified against Guzman on Monday. During his testimony, he explained that El Chapo was in charge of drug-trafficking train route. The train carried legitimate-looking cooking oil, which traffickers would siphon off and replace with cocaine. Mr Sanchez says that the train route got the Sinaloa cartel somewhere between $500 million and $800 million, by distributing the drugs to New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. 
2018-12-11T20:22:34.830Z
Prosecutors admitted several clips of Rolling Stone's interview with El Chapo today as evidence in his trial.  The interview was conducted by actor Sean Penn. The notorious drug lord videotaped his responses in a clandestine location while he was still in hiding.

Here is the full video of the interview:

2018-12-11T15:16:54.906Z

Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of El Chapo, told Telemundo on Monday that she never saw her husband do anything unlawful when they were together. 

In a rare interview with the Spanish-speaking network, the former Mexican beauty queen pointed the finger at the media for portraying El Chapo as a murderous drug kingpin.

"[The media] made him too famous," Ms Aispuro said. "They [the media] don't want to bring him down from the pedestal."

Ms Aispuro said El Chapo liked the notoriety he was getting from the media coverage. 

"You have to be honest, I think he did like it, he does like it a little," she added.

2018-12-11T14:45:45.586Z

Tirso Martinez Sanchez, the fifth informant to testify against Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, testified on Monday that the the alleged kingpin came up with the elaborate drug smuggling route into New York. The smuggling scheme involved hiding 15 to 20 tons of cocaine in rail tanker cars with secret compartments. 


Mr Sanchez said El Chapo informed him of the plan in a secret meeting in a cabin near Toluca, Mexico, shortly after his notorious escape from prison in 2001. 

"I was the inventor of that route," El Chapo allegedly told Mr Sanchez.

2018-12-07T16:18:32.796Z

The trial of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzman will resume in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday.

2018-12-06T22:05:10.000Z
Court ended early today thanks to a transportation issue for a witness that was due to appear.

So, with that, we will back for more from the trial tomorrow.

2018-12-06T21:51:10.000Z
The court also heard from a coast guard officer, who described some of the drug shipments he had seen.

One included 237 bales of cocaine - with each bale weighing up to 50 pounds (22 kilograms).

2018-12-06T21:37:10.000Z

It is unclear when, or if, the Flores twins are going to testify in the trail. They are both currently serving 14-year sentences in federal custody.

2018-12-06T21:22:10.000Z
While it has been a relatively slow day for the trial today, there was the first mention for Pedro and Margarito Flores. 

The pair are twin brothers from Chicago who flipped on El Chapo and secretly taped their phone calls with him, before handing the recordings to drug enforcement agents.  

DEA agent Adrian Ibañez described a meeting with Pedro Flores in 2008.

2018-12-06T21:06:10.000Z
Ramirez Abadia also acknowledged lower-level operatives in the New York City area were knocked off under suspicion of stealing or snitching, including a woman in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Her husband and son also perished in the process, according to the defence.

Once he learned he had been indicted in the U.S., Ramirez Adadia fled to Brazil, where he made his face look like a theatrical mask with implants and injections. He also used disguises for photos on fake identification cards with various aliases in a bid to hide his identity, which ultimately failed.

2018-12-06T20:49:10.000Z
Seeking to drive home the human toll of the violent drug trade, defence attorney William Purpura got Ramirez Adadia to confirm the ledgers also showed the expenses for murders for hire — $45,000 to have three people killed and $338,776 in another instance because, he said, so many hit men were involved.

The dead included a top lieutenant rubbed out in prison after his arrest merely because, Ramirez Adadia suggested, "he knew a lot about my organisation." Another time, the witness said he lured a mutinous cartel member to a meeting where the victim and his entourage were slaughtered in a gangland-style ambush, their bodies then loaded in pickup trucks for disposal.

2018-12-06T20:36:10.000Z

Ramirez Abadia testified how his Norte del Valle cartel used a fleet of planes and boats to ship tons of cocaine to Mexico, where the Sinaloa cartel was tasked with smuggling it into the United States under the direction of Guzman and others. Prosecutors say the massive amounts of drugs and cash flowing back and forth across the U.S. border in the 1990s and early 2000s were documented in ledgers that looked like mundane business records.

2018-12-06T20:29:10.000Z
Today's proceedings may have slowed slightly in this lengthy hearing, but major revelations have come to light this week in the trial of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzman.

A key government witness, former Colombian kingpin Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, told the jury explosive details of alleged drug smuggling from Mexico to the US.

2018-12-06T20:16:26.000Z

 It seems many haven't been particularly enthralled with today's testimonies...

Agencies contributed to this report

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