Short Biography: El Chapo Guzman

El Chapo

Born as Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, Mr. Guzman soon became known as the infamous “El Chapo Guzmán” due to his height of five feet and six inches. With very little information regarding a birth date, he was questionably born on December 25th 1954, or April 4th 1957. Joaquín was born into a poor family located in a rural community known as La tuna de Badiraguato, Sinaloa, Mexico. However, many generations of his family lived and died in La Tuna. It is recognized that his father was a cattle rancher, but some sources argue that he may have also been a gomero, which is a Sinaloan word for an opium poppy farmer.

Very little details are known about Joaquín’s early life, but some claim that he did sell oranges as a child and did

drop out of school at the third grade level, to work with his father. Due to the scarce amount of work in the community they lived in, Joaquín and his brothers turned to the cultivation of opium poppy. Hiking to the mountains in the harvest season, Joaquín and his brothers would cut the buds of the poppy and would bring them back home for his father to sell. As Joaquín grew into a teenager, his father kicked him out of the house and he shortly moved in with his grandfather. This is when Joaquín earned his nickname as “El Chapo” in his teenage years, which is a Mexican slang word for “shorty” from his short and stocky appearance. Joaquín soon wanted to leave his hometown to find greater opportunities and a career elsewhere. However, he soon became in contact with his Uncle Pedro Avilés Pérez, who was heavily involved in drug trafficking and organized crime, soon to be Joaquín new profound path of life.
Joaquín early stages within the organized crime field soon erupted by him going to work for the drug lord Héctor Palma in the 1970’s. He would transport drugs and oversee drug transactions/shipments for Héctor. It is known that he had an unique way of doing business; if any of his drug transactions were not on time, he would execute the smuggler by shooting him in the head, killing him. These events mainly took place within the 1970’s and the 1980’s. Soon, he was leading his very own cartel known as the Sinaloa Cartel. Joaquín’s cartel was now known as the one of the most power fullest and wealthiest Mexican drug cartels. Joaquín and his cartel were now on the rise and he was beginning to gain more attention and respect within his career choice of organized crime.
After years of avoiding law enforcement agencies, Joaquín was finally arrested on June 9th 1993. Nearly a decade later in 2001, he escaped the maximum-security prison in Mexico that he was being held in. Wanted from his prison escape in 2001, now 13 years later, and he was still on the run. On February 22 of 2014, Joaquín was captured again and incarcerated. After about one full year of incarceration, July 11th 2015, he planned and successfully escaped his maximum-security prison cell he was being held in.
The escape consisted of an underground tunnel that was nearly one mile long. Starting from a semi-built house, which led right to the shower area of his cellblock. The escape has prompted several manhunts within our government. Cash awards are being offered to the public in assistance that leads to Joaquín’s arrest. It is relevant to assume that with all of his connections, he can be anywhere in the world. More and more news reports are popping up with arrests that are being made with people who were in connection with helping him escape prison. It will only be a matter of time before one of his accomplices’ slips up and says too much information, or cuts a deal with law enforcement agencies and confesses to more information what will lead to the arrest of El Chapo.