“El Chapo”, without visits in US prison

MEXICO CITY (AP).— The one who was the Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficker, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmánstates that cannot receive phone calls or visits in the American maximum prison security where he is serving a life sentence.

Guzmán, who in the past was capable of escaping from Mexican prisons apparently at will, he wrote a letter at the end of March that It was now announced to Judge Brian Cogan, of the Eastern District Court of New York.complaining that He can’t talk to his twin daughters.

He was convicted of running an industrial-scale drug smuggling operation and is serving time in a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

In May 2023, “the center stopped granting me calls with my daughters. And I have not had calls with them for seven months,” Guzmán wrote. “I have asked when they are going to give me a call with my daughters and the staff here told me that the FBI agent who monitors the calls does not answer. “That’s all they’ve told me.”

“It is unprecedented discrimination once morest me,” Guzmán complained in his letter. “They have decided to punish me by not letting me talk to my daughters.”

Guzmán directed the Sinaloa Cartel in bloody territorial battles that claimed the lives of thousands of Mexicans. He escaped twice from Mexican prisonsone of them through a kilometer-long tunnel dug from his cell.

After being extradited to the city of NY, His three-month trial included stories of grisly murders, political bribery, cocaine hidden in jalapenos cans, and jewel-encrusted guns.

Guzmán also asked the judge to authorize a visit from his wife, Emma Coronelbut did not say when he was last allowed to see her. Emma Coronel She also pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges in 2021, but was later released.

“I ask you, please, I authorized her to visit me and to bring my daughters to visit me.since my daughters can only visit me when they are on school vacations, since they are studying in Mexico,” Guzmán wrote.

Cogan responded last week by saying that once Guzmán was convicted, all dispositions are in the hands of the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons and that he had no power to intervene.

In his response, Cogan also stated that, following his conviction, “the Federal Bureau of Prisons became solely responsible” for Guzmán’s confinement conditions and that the judge cannot change them.

“Accordingly, your request must be denied,” the judge said.

The letters were filed by the court in the case file, which is accessible to the public.

In December, Guzmán’s mother, 95, died in Sinaloa.

Lawyers for Guzmán’s family did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In 2023, Mexico extradited one of his many children, Ovidio Guzmán López, to the United States to be tried for drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges.

In his youth, Guzmán is believed to have led the Sinaloa cartel’s offensive to produce and export fentanyl to the United States, a substance blamed for 70,000 overdose deaths annually.