El Chapo, Escaped Mexican Drug Lord, Is Recaptured in Gun Battle

He became a byword for government incompetence, a folk hero whose reputation soared after he burrowed his way out of the country’s most secure prison. But on Friday, nearly six months after his escape, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo, was captured again after a fierce gun battle near the coast in his home state of Sinaloa, Mexican officials said. “Mission accomplished: We have him,” President Enrique Peña Nieto announced. The arrest ended one of the most extensive manhunts undertaken by the government, involving every law enforcement agency in the country and help from the United States. But it was the Marines, Mexico’s most-trusted military forces, who managed to capture the fugitive in an early morning raid that left five of Mr. Guzmán’s gunmen dead, the Mexican authorities said. An American official also described the raid as “a Mexican op, planned and executed by Mexico.”...more