Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon told the New York Times that he thinks fugitive drug lord Joaquin Guzman, alias “El Chapo,” may be hiding out in the United States.
In newly-released extracts, translated into Spanish, from an interview with the newspaper, Calderon expressed his suspicions that Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, was sheltering on the northern side of the border.
When asked about the recent reports that Guzman’s wife had traveled to Los Angeles to give birth, and whether Mexican authorities had tried to stop and interrogate her about the drug lord’s whereabouts, Calderon replied that that was a question for the U.S. border authorities. He suggested that Guzman might have been present for the birth, and said he wondered why the U.S. authorities didn’t capture the cartel boss.
The president went on to say that “it is amazing that [Chapo] and his wife are so relaxed in the U.S., which leads me to wonder … how many Mexican capos will be more relaxed on the northern side of the border than on the southern side?”
Calderon’s government has often faced accusations of collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel and lacking the political will to recapture the Sinaloa boss, who escaped from prison in 2001.
Guzman (pictured above, next to image of wife Emma Coronel) has been variously rumored to be hiding out in Argentina, Bolivia, and Guatemala, as well as in his stronghold in the mountains of Durango, Mexico.
(See Univision’s video report, below.)