Pubdate: Tue, 14 Jul 2015
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2015 Sun-Times Media, LLC
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/5QwXAJWY
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81

IF CAUGHT, ' EL CHAPO' SHOULD BE TRIED IN U.S.

Look no farther than the shooting death of 7- year-old Amari Brown to 
understand how the prison escape Saturday night of Mexican drug 
kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is bad news for Chicago.

Amari was gunned down accidentally on July 4 in a gang dispute, it is 
believed, fueled by illegal drugs. Where did those drugs come from? 
Guzman's Sinaloa cartel is the major source of the drugs that come to Chicago.

The cartel also uses Chicago as a distribution center for sales 
elsewhere in the country. Back in 2009, then- U. S. Attorney Patrick 
Fitzgerald said Sinaloa brought nearly $ 6 billion worth of illegal 
drugs narcotics mostly to the Chicago area from 1990 to 2008. In 
2010, the Justice Department said the Chicago area was the top U. S. 
destination for heroin and No. 2 for cocaine and marijuana.

An escape that helps Guzman and Sinaloa can only serve to deepen the 
drug-fueled gang wars in Chicago. It's the cartel at the top that 
leads to the violence on the street.

Guzman, long known as the No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs to the 
United States, had already bribed his way out previously from a 
Mexican prison. After he was recaptured last year, U. S. officials 
said they would try to extradite him, although it's not clear whether 
they ever filed an official request.

If the widespread manhunt now underway tracks Guzman down, the United 
States must insist that he be held in an American prison. If he can 
saunter so easily out of Mexico's most secure prison- a mile-long 
tunnel leading to his prison shower had ventilation, lighting and 
even a motorcycle-we can never feel certain Mexico can hold him, 
should he be re- arrested.

In an American maximum-security prison, he'd be kept in a cell, taken 
out only under heavy guard and watched closely. Compare that with 
Guzman's life of leisure in Puente Grande, his first maximum-security 
prison, where he reportedly lolled around watching films, eating 
gourmet cuisine, sipping fine wine, importing prostitutes and even 
enjoying parties at Christmastime before he escaped in 2001.

In Mexico, officials knew that Sinaloa had a history of digging 
tunnels. Yet no one noticed someone digging one right under the 
Altiplano prison, from which no one had even before escaped? The 
vaunted security-the surrounding air space is a no-fly zone, airwaves 
are restricted to prevent cell phone communications-proved worthless. 
How many prison guards and even higher officials are beholden to El Chapo?

Mexico prefers to try drug suspects itself, but it is simply 
incapable of holding dangerous drug lords, who have tentacles 
everywhere in their home country, and great leverage through rewards 
and threats. Mexican officials had promised Guzman could never 
escape, but his departure couldn't have been much easier if he had 
called a limo to pick him up at the front gate.

Guzman also has been charged with serious crimes in the United 
States, which means if he is caught again, he can be brought here and 
put on trial. He has multiple federal drug trafficking indictments on 
his rap sheet, and the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration put him 
on its most-wanted list. So did the Chicago Crime Commission.

On Monday, the White House said U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch 
had spoken with Mexico's attorney general the day after the escape 
and that the United States is offering Mexico its full support.

That's not enough. We should also be insisting we're first in line to 
try him should he be rearrested. That wouldn't stop the flow of 
illegal drugs to Chicago. But it would be a start.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom