El Chapo

United States prosecutors say they are seeking $12.7 billion from convicted Mexican drug kingpin, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman based on a conservative estimate of revenues from his cartel’s drug sales in America. 

According to a motion filed by US Attorney, Richard Donoghue on Saturday, authorities are ‘entitled to forfeiture of all property that constitutes or is derived from the defendant’s narcotics-related crimes’.

Authorities said based on prices for drugs quoted by various witnesses, Guzman’s 25-year reign as head of the Sinaloa cartel netted sales of some $11.8 billion in cocaine, $846 million in marijuana and $11 million in heroin.

The money was laundered and used to pay the cartel’s workers and suppliers as well as purchase communications equipment, planes, submarines and other vehicles.

“The government need not prove that the defendant can pay the forfeiture money judgment; it need only prove by a preponderance of evidence that the amount it seeks is forfeitable,” the prosecutors said.

Guzman’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman however argued that the demand was ‘largely an academic exercise as the government has never located or identified even a penny of the $12.7 billion supposedly generated by Mr. Guzman.

The 62-year-old Guzman was found guilty in February following a three-month trial for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana to the United States over the course of 25 years.

He was also convicted of money laundering and weapons possession charges by jurors who heard how he had beaten, shot and even buried alive some of those who tried to get in his way.

A former El Chapo associate said during the trial that the drug kingpin lived a lavish lifestyle in the 1990s, the height of his power with four jets for travelling the world, a beachfront mansion in Acapulco and a private zoo on an expansive estate in Guadalajara.

Guzman, who would be sentenced on July 17 is expected to be ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison.