Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin captured weeks after reports about DEA deal with drug smugglers

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo, has been reportedly captured while staying at a Mexican beach resort. Mexican marines are said to have made the arrest of Loera without incident in the Pacific beach resort area of Mazatlan. American officials announced his capture stating that it ended a 13-year manhunt for the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel that is said to be responsible for supplying over 80% of the drugs trafficked to Chicago, Illinois.

According to a journalistic investigation by El Universal, Mexico’s largest news paper reported in January that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement in place with the Sinaloa cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs into the United States in exchange for information on rival cartels. This allowed the Sinaloa cartel to become one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico. Since her appointment in 2007 by the Bush administration and nominated by the Obama administration in 2010, DEA administrator Michele Leonhart has not answered questions about the alleged deal the DEA made with the cartel.