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Texas Gov. Abbott to 'El Chapo': Cross Border and We'll Nail You
Monday, July 13, 2015 03:01 PM
By: Bill Hoffmann
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a no-nonsense message to fugitive Mexican drug lord "El Chapo" and his cocaine-pushing cohorts: cross the border into the Lone Star State and we'll nail you.
"If he or any other cartel member thinks about trying to come into Texas, we've got a prison cell waiting for them. He is an immense danger," Abbott said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
El Chapo, or Joaquín Guzmán — once named the "most powerful drug trafficker in the world" by the U.S. Treasury Department for smuggling hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal narcotics across the border — escaped Saturday through a one-mile tunnel under Mexico's Altiplano maximum-security prison.
The 60-year-old drug kingpin — whose powerful Sinaloa drug cartel ships huge quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine around the world — had been locked away since his capture in 2014. The prison break was El Chapo's second escape in 15 years.
"We're frustrated about this because he was supposed to be extradited to the United States. We should've had control of him. He should be in a United States prison for the rest of his life," Abbott told Malzberg.
"He is a danger, as well as the cartels who are dangerous, which is one of the reasons why we passed this new tough border security plan because part of the target are the cartels.
"And we will not allow the cartels. We've sent a message to the cartels: 'Take your business elsewhere.'''
On Sunday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the United States is ready to help Mexican authorities in their hunt for El Chapo. Officials believe the escape tunnel — which has lighting, ventilation, and modified motorcycle tracks — was made especially for the drug lord, who is said to have personal wealth of $1 billion.
Abbott said he plans to meet with Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto about border security between Mexico and Texas.
"We're going to focus on a couple of things, one is going to be on the immigration issue. If you go back in time to this time last year … we had all these people who were coming across the border. Many of them coming from Central America," he said.
"These kids and moms got here by cartels bringing them here at a price tag of $5-$20,000 per person but one thing that we did insist on with Mexico is that they do a better job of securing their southern border — which they have done.
"[It's] one of the reasons why we haven't seen as many people coming across but the real thing that we want to talk to them about is economic development and Mexico developing their energy resources. Because the more Mexico gets economically developed, the more Central America gets economically developed."
Meanwhile, Abbott said, his state has implemented "the toughest border security plan ever in the history of the country."
"[We've put] boots on the ground and assets in the air and on the water to secure our border. We're trying to get other people to act. We've decided to take control of our own lives, of our own sovereignty, of our own state."
