EL CHAPO TRIAL: MEXICAN DRUG LORD JOAQUÍN GUZMÁN FOUND GUILTY

Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been found guilty on all 10 counts at his drug trafficking trial at a federal court in New York.

Guzmán, 61, has yet to be sentenced but the verdict could mean life in jail.

The Mexican was accused of being behind the all-powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, which prosecutors say was the biggest supplier of drugs to the US.

He was arrested in January 2016 after escaping from a Mexican prison through a tunnel five months earlier.

Tuesday’s unanimous verdict by a jury in Brooklyn followed an 11-week trial.

Key associates, including one former lieutenant, testified against Guzmán.

Who’s is El Chapo?

“El Chapo” (or “Shorty”) – once one of the world’s richest men – ran the cartel in northern Mexico.

Over time, it became one of the biggest traffickers of drugs to the US and, in 2009, Guzmán entered Forbes’ list of the world’s richest men at number 701, with an estimated worth of $1bn.

He was alleged to have helped export hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the US, and was also accused of conspiring to manufacture and distribute heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana – and ordering killings.

The indictment said he employed hitmen to carry out “hundreds” of murders, assaults, kidnappings and acts of torture on rivals.

WHAT DID THE COURT HEAR?

The trial provided shocking revelations about the Mexican drug lord’s life.

Court papers unsealed on Friday accuse him of having girls as young as 13 drugged before raping them.

Guzmán “called the youngest of the girls his ‘vitamins’ because he believed that sexual activity with young girls gave him ‘life'”, former associate Colombian drug trafficker Alex Cifuentes is quoted as saying.

During the trial Cifuentes also alleged that Guzmán gave a $100m (£77m) bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is said to have contacted him after taking office in 2012 and asked for $250m in return for ending a manhunt for him. Mr Pena Nieto has not publicly commented.