Wednesday’s Borderland Beat contained extensive details of Operation Gargoyle, the month-long hunt for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, the head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the most wanted man in the world. I have chosen to post only the final 17 minutes of his capture.
From Borderland Beat:
At 5:45 a.m., Mazatlan time, on February 22, a hand-picked team of 30 Navy marines, who had arrived one by one from Culiacan so as not to attract attention, parked on the coast highway, entered the Miramar Tower condo building, secured the surrounding areas, placed a guard on an adjacent swimming pool in case the capo decided to escape by jumping from his window, questioned the watchman, broke first into Apartment 602, detained two apparently intoxicated persons, decided they weren't their targets and went down two floors to the fourth floor where they approached the front door of Apartment 401.
They were going to try to open the door with a key, a lock pick, but through the door they heard, so they tell us, the sound of an AR-15 being cocked. So they decided to bust the door quickly and the first thing they see in the entry room is a man called "Condor", "Chapo" Guzman's chief of security.
"Condor", according to the narrative, hides behind this door holding a weapon. The marines come in with a bulletproof shield and tell him, "Give up, Condor", and, according to this part of the narrative, he drops the weapon and is immediately apprehended.
A group of six marines go through this hallway in the apartment of a little over 100 meters square, where there is a wheelchair that, according to the building administrators, was ordered by "El Condor", who gave a false name when he registered, because he said he was going to bring up his grandfather. They don't eliminate the possibility that, as a disguise, they may have used the wheelchair to bring "El Chapo" up here in the elevator.
When they get here, according to what they tell us, the marine team breaks up into three parts. Two men go to this first room where there are two women and the two youngest daughters of the total of 16 children that "El Chapo" has fathered. The nanny was there, along with the cook that always traveled with "Chapo" wherever he went because they say he likes good food, and here were the two daughters. These two persons are secured.
Two men go through this door, not knowing it was a bathroom; they don't find anything.
And two men go on to the main bedroom, which is this one. According to the narrative from the Navy marines, they got to this point and saw a woman that was, shall we say, in a sleeping position, awake at 5:45 local time here in Mazatlan, 6:45 Central. She stands up and says there's nobody else, please don't touch her.
Then the marines go into (the room) to search. The closets and the bathroom door were closed, and when they cannot open it completely, that's when they call out to Joaquin Guzman to surrender, who, according to this part of the report, was hiding behind the bathroom door.
It's not until the third time they order him that he agrees to surrender, they bring him down, and that's where they handcuff him and he is secured. According to the report, the operation in the apartment took two minutes, and 17 minutes from the time they entered the building. According to the official report, they twice yelled at him to surrender, but he didn't respond. The third time was louder. Also, they told him the entire building was surrounded. And they called him by his nickname, "Chapo", using "tu" (you), the familiar form of address.
He stuck his head out and pulled it back. He showed his two empty hands and pulled them back again.
The marine trooper told him there might be gunshots. "Give up, Chapo," he yelled at him. The soldier recalls that the capo answered with an "Ok", repeated four times. He showed his body and they subdued him.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mexican marines are to be commended for conducting a flawless operation during which no shots were fired and no one was injured. Our best police SWAT teams and our navy SEALs could not have performed any better.
Borderland Beat also reported on the interviews held with EL Chapo after his capture. He confessed to having killed between 2,000 and 3,000 persons, among them Tijuana cartel head Ramon Arellano Felix, but not Juan Jesus Cardinal Posadas Ocampo, one of Mexico’s two Roman Catholic Cardinals, who was shot to death in 1993 at the Guadalajara airport.
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