Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn conducted an extensive sit-down interview with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman at his Mexican hideout, a meeting that played a role in the drug kingpin’s arrest, authorities say.
Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, wasrecaptured in northwest Mexico on Friday and sent back to the jail he escaped from in July last year through a tunnel that led straight into his cell, embarrassing authorities.
The interview, published by Rolling Stone magazine a day after the rearrest, was brokered by Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo, who herself played a Mexican drug queen in a well-known soap opera.
Penn met Guzman in a jungle in October to conduct the “seven-hour sit-down” with the capo, whom he later followed up with, sending him questions to which Guzman responded with videotaped answers.
The actor said Guzman had sent engineers to Germany for three months of training in tunnelling prior to his escape.
Authorities said the meeting between Penn and Guzman was part of the investigation that helped rearrest the drug baron.
Read Sean Penn’s account of his secret visit with El Chapo, before the drug lord’s recapture https://t.co/BIRwROeFdk pic.twitter.com/rnzt2DhCXe
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) January 10, 2016
“Mexican authorities had knowledge of this meeting,” a federal official said on condition of anonymity after Rolling Stone published the story.
On Friday, Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez said they were able to locate Guzman after he met with actors and producers in the hope of making a biopic about himself.
Penn said Guzman was unapologetic in the interview, and quoted him as saying: “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats.”
Guzman was involved in trading drugs from the age of 15, and said it was the only way to survive.