AP Exclusive: Mexico police nearly nabbed El Chapo

Source: AP-Excite


By KATHERINE CORCORAN

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Much like the late Osama bin Laden, the man the U.S. calls the world's most powerful drug lord apparently has been hiding in plain sight.

Mexican federal police nearly nabbed Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in a coastal mansion in Los Cabos three weeks ago, barely a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with dozens of other foreign ministers in the same southern Baja peninsula resort town.

Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas, Mexico's assistant attorney general in charge of organized crime investigations, confirmed on Sunday that there was a near miss in late February in the government's efforts to arrest the man who has become one of the world's top fugitives since he escaped prison in a laundry truck in 2001.

"We know he was there," Salinas told The Associated Press.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120312/D9TET3BO0.html

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In this June 10, 1993 file photo, Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias "El Chapo Guzman," is shown to the press after his arrest at the high security prison of Almoloya de Juarez, outskirts of Mexico City. Mexican federal police nearly nabbed Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in a coastal mansion in Los Cabos in late February, 2012, barely a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with dozens of other foreign ministers in the same southern Baja peninsula resort town. Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas, Mexico's assistant attorney general in charge of organized crime investigations, confirmed on Sunday, March 11, 2012, that there was a near miss in the government's efforts to arrest one of the world's top fugitives since he escaped prison in a laundry truck in 2001. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, file)