'El Chapo': Sean Penn interviewed Guzman before recapture

[EC]

Hollywood actor Sean Penn interviewed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman at a secret location soon after his jail break.

The interview, conducted in October in the Mexican jungle, is published in Saturday's edition of Rolling Stone.

Guzman escaped from the maximum security Altiplano jail in July and was recaptured on Friday.

Unnamed Mexican officials say Penn's secret meeting helped lead them to the fugitive who is back in Altiplano.

Their comments chime with public pronouncements by Attorney General Arely Gomez, who said on Friday that an important aspect of his recapture "was discovering Guzman's intention to have a biographic film made".

"He contacted actresses and producers, which was part of one line of investigation."

In the Rolling Stone article, the result of a seven-hour "sit-down", Penn and Guzman discuss various topics, including drug trafficking.

Guzman, 58, is quoted as saying: "If there was no consumption, there would be no sales.''

He also rejects responsibility for drug addiction, saying "the day I don't exist, it's not going to decrease in any way at all".

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-35275070

[rangerrebew]

January 10, 2016
Sean Penn apparently led Mexican cops to El Chapo by interviewing him for Rolling Stone
By Thomas Lifson

Rolling Stone is getting a lot of clicks today for the interview Sean Penn did with Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán Loera, a.k.a El Chapo. Titled, “El Chapo Speaks,” the piece presents the man responsible for a reported 3,000 deaths and a flood of heroin and other drugs into America as a cuddly Colonel Kurtz, as my friend Lucianne Goldberg quipped. If you want to contribute to helping Rolling Stone pay off the coming libel judgment resulting from its fictitious rape story about a University of Virginia fraternity, go ahead and click on the link.

I am much more interested in what lies ahead for Mr. Penn, our very own Secret Agent Man in the War on Drugs. You would think that by now the various world-class villains to whom he finds himself attracted would notice that very bad things tend to happen to them after palling around with Sean.

There was that trip to Baghdad prior to the US invasion. How did that work out for Saddam?

Then there was all that palling around with another odious dwarf, Hugo Chavez. Venezuela went so far on the road to hell that toilet paper and other necessities became hard to come by in a country floating on a sea of oil, and then ol’ Hugo got cancer and died, despite the efforts of Cuba’s finest doctors, M.D. Anderson in Houston being streng verboten when you believe capitalism is at the root of all evil.

And now El Chapo learns that Sean set him up. AP reports:

    A Mexican law enforcement official says recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's secret interview with actor Sean Penn helped authorities locate his whereabouts.

The last we learned of Penn’s armory, he was packing a 9mm Glock and a 38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, for which he has very hard-to-obtain concealed carry permits. If he hasn’t alresady, he may want to consider armed guards. El Chapo has lots of buddies, and he just might be a little upset at Sean.  I don't suppose he reads the New York Post, but he may agree with the entiment expressed here, but for different reasons.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/sean_penn_apparently_led_mexican_cops_to_el_chapo_by_interviewing_him_for_rolling_stone.html#ixzz3wqwMkxEP
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[Right_in_Virginia]

I wonder what this news makes Sean's life worth?   

[rangerrebew]

I wonder what this news makes Sean's life worth?   

He was friends with Khadafi and Castro, too.  No change seen.  In fact, it probably raises hit stature in Hollyweird :nometalk:

[flowers]

He was friends with Khadafi and Castro, too.  No change seen.  In fact, it probably raises hit stature in Hollyweird :nometalk:

Khadafi and Castro, Chavez when he was alive he met with and admired as well. This is different, WAY different.  If this was the reason he was captured.......way different.

[mountaineer]

Sunday, January 10, 2016
“Hey Bud, Let’s Party With El Chapo!”
Michelle Obama's Mirror

Well I didn’t win the Powerball drawing last night. And apparently you didn’t either.

    With no winners in Saturday night's record $949.8 million Powerball jackpot, the next jackpot could reach an estimated $1.3 billion, lottery officials said early Sunday.

What would you do if you won $1.3 billion? And since we’re playing make believe, let’s pretend that you don’t have to first give half your winnings to the IRS. I’d buy new appliances and spend the rest buying the 2016 American presidential election. At least I think $1.3 billion would be enough to Make America Great Again (MAGA).

Alternatively, if it begins to look like there are enough Americans who want to MAGA without my investment, I might put a yuge bounty on Sean Penn’s head for aiding and abetting a fugitive. It would be payable only if you deliver him alive to Mexican officials for processing and handling.  There he could live out his anti-American life making some new Mexican friends:

... Penn is happy to report in his Rolling Stone exclusive that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is not your run-of-the-mill drug lord:

    “I took some comfort in a unique aspect of El Chapo’s reputation among the heads of drug cartels in Mexico: that, unlike many of his counterparts who engage in gratuitous kidnapping and murder, El Chapo is a businessman first, and only resorts to violence when he deems it advantageous to himself or his business interests.”

So that’s good: no gratuitous violence! Only if necessary! Just like in Hollywood! Which it frequently is, apparently.

Butt if you’re upset with the reknowned anti-gun, anti-American, climate expert and drug kingpin fanboy,

 just remember; like fellow self-absorbed tiger blood drinking thespian Charlie Sheen, Sean’s not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer:

    “In school I was a genius of the year preceding the year I was in, every year.” – Esquire

[alicewonders]

Gosh, I hope Chapo doesn't put a price on his head.   :nometalk:

So, how does this work?  Does El Chapo contact Rolling Stone or Sean Penn to do an interview - or do they contact him? 

[Right_in_Virginia]

Gosh, I hope Chapo doesn't put a price on his head.   :nometalk:

This seems like a good time for Mr. Penn to find a safe, undisclosed location.   

[alicewonders]

This seems like a good time for Mr. Penn to find a safe, undisclosed location.   

I hear Cuba is nice.   

[flowers]

Gosh, I hope Chapo doesn't put a price on his head.   :nometalk:

So, how does this work?  Does El Chapo contact Rolling Stone or Sean Penn to do an interview - or do they contact him?

the story goes like this. and I say story because I watched this evolve on CNN yesterday. At first it was Penn was in trouble. Then it became artistic license and all. Sorry I digressed. A Mexican actress was in touch with El Chapo, she played a Mexican gangster chick on a Telemudo TV series. Then she contacted Penn.

[alicewonders]

the story goes like this. and I say story because I watched this evolve on CNN yesterday. At first it was Penn was in trouble. Then it became artistic license and all. Sorry I digressed. A Mexican actress was in touch with El Chapo, she played a Mexican gangster chick on a Telemudo TV series. Then she contacted Penn.

Thanks flowers.

[flowers]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-guzman-penn-idUSKCN0UT1P5

Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn on Friday rejected Mexico's claim that his secret meeting with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was crucial to the drug kingpin's recapture, saying officials were trying to put him in the crosshairs of the feared cartel.

Penn also told talk show host Charlie Rose that he regrets the fallout from the Rolling Stone article based on his interview with Guzman. Their meeting in a jungle hideout was the first interview anyone scored with the fugitive drug lord, and Penn said he had hoped it would spur a broader discussion on the drug war.

In Penn's first major television interview about the meeting, Rose asked the actor whether he believed Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto's government had deliberately sought to credit him with Guzman's capture to put him at risk from the Sinaloa Cartel.

"Yes," Penn replied.

"There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was... 'essential' to his capture," Penn said.

"We know the Mexican government, they clearly were humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did," added Penn.

[flowers]

Drug lord was interested in Mexican actress, not Sean Penn

http://www.kfiam640.com/onair/john-and-ken-37487/drug-lord-was-interested-in-mexican-14277137/

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was eager to set up a face-to-face meeting with Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, and had apparently never heard of Sean Penn, according to transcripts of over a month of text messages exchanged between the two.

The transcripts published Wednesday by the newspaper Milenio - and confirmed as authentic by a federal official - showed that Guzman's was less interested in making a movie about his life than he was in flirting with the actress.

"What's that actor's name?" the account identified as Guzman's writes in one message to Del Castillo. He later asks his lawyers to tell him what movies Penn has appeared in. Even when Guzman dedicated a video statement as an exclusive for Del Castillo and Penn, the drug lord stumbles over Penn's first name, pronouncing it "SAY-ahn."

Penn has acknowledged that he tagged along for the controversial Oct. 2 meeting at a mountain hideout originally set up by Del Castillo. The U.S. actor wrote a lengthy article for Rolling Stone magazine that recounted the secret trip to meet Guzman, who was recaptured by Mexican marines on Friday after six months on the run.

The federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he or she was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the dozens of texts were authentic. Many expressed admiration and a longing for the next meeting, more than concern about the purported movie project.

"I'll tell you, I am more excited about you than the (movie) script," Guzman wrote to Del Castillo. He identified her identified in his chat or text account as "ermoza," a misspelling of the Spanish word for "beautiful." ''I'll take care of you," he adds.

Another text from the drug lord reads: "How is the best and most intelligent woman in the world, who I admire a lot?" At one point, Guzman - who is reportedly married to former beauty queen Emma Coronel, and has had children with her and several other women - writes "My mother wants to meet you. I told her about you."

"I want you with all my heart," he wrote.

Del Castillo responds in kind. "Apart from our (movie) project, I am very excited about seeing you eye to eye, in person," she wrote, adding later "we will embrace each other soon!"

[mountaineer]

Sean Penn regrets fallout from El Chapo interview
 [Reuters] (via Yahoo)
January 15, 2016

(Reuters) - Actor Sean Penn regrets the fallout from his Rolling Stone article on Mexican kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, which was aimed at discussing the drug war, Penn said in an interview released Friday with journalist and talk show host Charlie Rose.

"I have a terrible regret," Penn told CBS This Morning co-host Rose in the interview recorded late Thursday in Santa Monica. "I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy on the War on Drugs."

Guzman was recaptured last week, six months after staging a spectacular prison break through a tunnel in his cell floor.

While on the run, Guzman met secretly with Penn at a jungle hideout - a move the government says was "essential" to his capture.

The article based on the interview by Penn, 55, was published in Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday, and quotes Guzman boasting about his drug shipments and the laundering of money through major Mexican and foreign companies.

The actor refuted claims that his interview led to El Chapo's arrest.

"There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was... 'essential' to his capture," Penn said.

He said he had met with Guzman "many weeks" and in a location far from the capture.

Mexican officials wanted to encourage drug cartels to blame Guzman's capture on the meeting, Penn said, because the government was embarrassed that Penn and his coworkers found the drug kingpin before they could.

Penn said he could be in danger but was not afraid of potential threats.

He did not say who had organized the meeting with Guzman, but said he had a contact "facilitate an invitation."

[mountaineer]

Can anyone else see how copiously the tears stream from my eyes?

Cartel expert says Sean Penn, del Castillo could be in serious danger
Caitlin Dickson, Yahoo News
18 hours ago

It’s been just over four months since Sean Penn met with the world’s most wanted drug lord, and things aren’t going as the actor had planned.

“My article has failed,” Penn told CBS’s Charlie Rose in an interview that will air on 60 Minutes this Sunday.

The Oscar winner was referring to the 10,000-plus word screed detailing his meeting this October with notorious Mexican cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and the events leading up to it. Rolling Stone published Penn’s article this past Saturday, following Guzman's capture six months after his Hollywoodesque escape from a maximum security prison this past July.

Penn had hoped that by interviewing the head of one of the world’s largest and deadliest drug cartels he could spark a meaningful dialogue about U.S. drug war policies. Instead, his interview is being credited with helping lead Mexican authorities to the evasive Guzman—a recognition the actor does not want.

"There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was—as the Attorney General of Mexico is quoted—'essential' to his capture," Penn told Rose. "We had met with him many weeks earlier...on October 2nd, in a place nowhere near where he was captured."

Penn might not have willingly participated in the search for El Chapo but, as Mexico’s Attorney General Arely Gomez explained on a local radio station this week, their meet-up “was an essential element, because we were following [Guzman’s] lawyer, and the lawyer took us to these people and to this meeting.”

According to Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, that could be enough to put Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who facilitated the meeting, in jeopardy.

“These cartels are very violent, they do not forgive any transgression and they will respond in a most violent manner,” Vigil told Yahoo News. “These are people who have dismembered, who have decapitated individuals. So killing Sean Penn and del Castillo means absolutely nothing to them.”

Vigil, whose decades-long DEA career includes several years of undercover work with Mexican cartels, said he thought it was a careless move on the Mexican government’s part to publicize any ties between the Penn meeting and Guzman’s arrest.

“If Chapo Guzman perceives that they cooperated with authorities in his capture, [the cartel] will go after them,” Vigil said, arguing that the risk is likely higher for del Castillo because she was the one in contact with Guzman. She was the one whom Guzman’s associates were instructed to provide with a Blackberry—the phone they’d deemed most secure—and it was their flirtatious correspondence that led to that fateful meeting in the jungle with Sean Penn.

“He developed a childlike infatuation with del Castillo and forgot about the fact that when he was captured in 2014, he was captured as a result of telephone monitoring,” Vigil said. “Apart from that, [del Castillo] is originally from Mexico, she has all of her family in Mexico. One of the traditional violent methods [the cartels] use is if they can’t get to the target, they’ll go after their family members.”

He added, “If I were Kate del Castillo I would run like the wind.”

It took 13 years for authorities to track down El Chapo after his first prison break in 2001, and when he disappeared again in July, the Mexican government took a lot of heat from U.S. officials and Mexican citizens alike who pointed to Guzman’s escapes as evidence of deep-seated corruption and an inability to police its most powerful criminals.

Penn alluded to this dynamic in one section of his Rolling Stone article, in which he describes driving through a military checkpoint with Alfredo Guzman, El Chapo’s son, on the way to meet the man himself.

“Two uniformed government soldiers, weapons at the ready, approach our vehicle. Alfredo lowers his passenger window; the soldiers back away, looking embarrassed, and wave us through,” Penn writes. “Wow. So it is, the power of a Guzman face. And the corruption of an institution.”

The Mexican government has said it plans to extradite Guzman to the U.S. this time around. When that happens, Vigil said, there is a good chance that Penn and del Castillo could be called to testify in federal court about the meeting or certain incriminating parts of the Rolling Stone article, such as the one in which Guzman is quoted 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.”

While Penn said he believes the Mexican authorities have deliberately tried to put the blame on him for Guzman’s arrest, he told Charlie Rose he does not fear for his life. He does, however, have “a terrible regret.”

"I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the War on Drugs," Penn said.

Vigil doesn’t blame Penn, but he believes the interview was clearly a huge mistake for everyone involved.

“People in Hollywood have a tendency to live in a cocoon and they really don’t understand all of these implications,” he said.

[flowers]

"I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to try to contribute to this discussion about the policy in the War on Drugs," Penn said.

  Oh my Penn. What a useful tool/fool you are. Not only have you stuck your finger in ElChapos wasp nest......you have also got the ire of USA fed gov. 

[Right_in_Virginia]

I hear Cuba is nice.