Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, wrote a series of letters that reveal he’s on the verge of insanity. This comes just five years after beginning his life sentence for drug trafficking in one of the world’s harshest prisons, ADMAX in Florence, Colorado, the only supermax prison in the United States.
“With no educational programs or employment opportunities available to me, no access to the library, and limited exercise time, I’m left with virtually nothing to do as the days go by. I spend my time doing nothing in my cell, surrounded by the same four walls, in a sinister and dehumanizing environment.”
How is El Chapo Guzmán?
A series of previously unpublished letters from the Mexican national, obtained by MILENIO, reveal how the days pass while the man, once the world’s most wanted criminal, tries to stay sane in the hope that the judge will allow him to hear from his twin daughters or his sister a couple of times a month.
“The SAMs are punitive and I’m getting sick, so I ask that you please remove the SAMs before I have a heart attack or before I go crazy, because under the conditions I’m currently in, which are so cruel and inhumane, that’s what’s going to happen.”
El Chapo Guzmán is referring to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), prison conditions imposed on him by the Department of Justice, which controls the Bureau of Prisons, to prevent him from escaping, as he did twice in Mexico.
First, in 2001, from the Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, hidden in a laundry cart, according to the official version of events. Then, in 2015, from the Altiplano prison in the State of Mexico, through a tunnel.
In eight letters, dated between 2023 and 2024, which are part of a complaint he filed in a Colorado court against the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Prisons, and the prison directors, El Chapo claimed that his captors want him dead, poisoned.
“I have complained on several occasions of being awakened every night, after midnight, by a sudden flow of extremely hot air that circulates for about 15 minutes, four or five times a night, causing rapid palpitations in my heart.”
“This air is extremely hot. This air releases some kind of gas, and when it comes out, my body starts to hurt. This hot air normally starts at 10:00 p.m. and lasts 15 minutes. Then they turn it off for two hours, and then on the third hour, they turn it back on for another 15 minutes. Then they turn it off for another two hours, and on the fifth hour, it starts again for another 15 minutes. This keeps me from sleeping well, and the heat raises my blood pressure.”
El Chapo Senses a Heart Attack
Joaquín Guzmán Loera, one of Mexico’s most notorious traffickers, said he could die at any moment.
“I’m about to have a heart attack… the device they installed to torture me releases a gas, and it gets so hot that it makes me sweat and my skin so itchy that it ends up hurting from scratching so much. As a result of that gas, I always get a headache and my blood pressure rises too much.”
El Chapo claimed that his lawyer, Mariel Colón, who helped translate his letters so he could file the administrative complaint, reported what they were doing to him. He said the actions only stopped briefly. Shortly after, they resumed the gas flow at night.
“It’s clear that the prison staff wants to cause my death… I’ve experienced depression and memory loss, which are also symptoms of severe sleep deprivation… I’ve suffered tremendously in solitary confinement. My blood pressure has skyrocketed to critical levels, leading to headaches and anxiety.”
As if the list weren’t long enough, El Chapo developed allergies since arriving in the United States. He’s begging for outside medical attention for this condition.
“I’ve had the allergy for more than seven years. It even hurts my forehead and part of my face. My nose has always hurt since I arrived in prison.”
Learning English, His Hobby
With barely any physical contact, a couple of television channels in Spanish inside his cell, no direct sunlight, access to water through an old sink, and food he can barely tolerate, the Mexican kingpin, responsible for thousands of deaths north and south of the Rio Grande, wants to speak English.
He does this because he believes he will one day be able to relax the harsh prison measures he faces, the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs).
“I want to learn English, since the prison staff doesn’t speak to me in Spanish, and therefore, it’s necessary for me to learn English so I can communicate with the prison staff and be able to read and understand the documents they give me, since every document they give me is in English, and also because I want to learn the language so I can have something to do,” writes El Chapo.
The measures prevent him from leaving his cell in Unit H of the prison for more than three hours a week, and according to Guzmán Loera, sometimes not even that.
When he does leave, he has no direct sunlight. After his short breaks, El Chapo says, he must return to the cell that has become his home, a small concrete room with a small window and a door, which has a compartment through which his food is delivered three times a day. Inside his cell, he only has a window that is 42 inches high and 4 inches wide.
El Chapo eats to avoid dying
“The food they give me at ADMAX is of low quality and tastes terrible. I eat only to survive, but I eat anything without any desire (…) the portions are small, and most of the time I’m left hungry. Evidence of this is that even the prison staff brings their own food. They don’t even eat the food from the ADMAX kitchen in Florence because it’s so bad.”
“The water I drink comes from a sink, and it tastes really bad because the pipe that runs it is moldy, because it’s over 30 years old.”
El Chapo claims that his misery is due, in part, to the Mexican and US governments inventing a myth surrounding the drug trafficker, following the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, amid the war between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Arellano Félix brothers.
His case, he says, “is too political in the wake of the death of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posada Ocampo, whom the Mexican government assassinated in 1993, blaming Guzmán for his death. They waged a media campaign to turn him into a villain, making him appear to the entire world as the worst man in the world, and the worst drug trafficker in the world.”
Remembering El Mayo Zambada’s Son
El Chapo even referred to Vicente Zambada Niebla, known as El Vicentillo, the son of his friend El Mayo Zambada, who testified against him during his trial in New York, and admitted that it was a highly political case.
“There is evidence that this is what happened. The government’s number one witness, Vicente Zambada, said this at the trial, that the Mexican and United States governments waged a campaign against Guzmán to make him a big name so they could arrest him.”
Guzmán Loera, a man who used to move with relative freedom and luxury in Sinaloa, where he was one of the most powerful and wanted people by Mexican and international law enforcement agencies, now suffers because he cannot see his family.
Prison authorities only allow him contact with one of his sisters and his twin daughters, the fruit of his marriage to Emma Coronel.
But the girls can only visit him a couple of times a year at most, and letters take between five and 10 months to arrive. El Chapo says he has never received replies. He claims that in 2024, he was only able to speak to his little girls on the phone once.
He knows so little about his family that his mother’s death went unnoticed by El Chapo Guzmán.
“My mother died in December 2023, and because I am imprisoned here, the United States government denied my mother multiple visa requests to come to the US to see me, and then they cut off my communication with her and my sister in May 2023. I couldn’t even say goodbye. To my mother. I wasn’t even fully aware of her condition,” the Mexican national writes.
From Reigning in Sinaloa to Harassment and Mockery
When Joaquín Guzmán Loera was tried in New York between 2018 and 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office portrayed him as a kingpin who, in addition to establishing prolific drug routes, including cocaine, to the United States, also managed to command armies of hitmen who ravaged various states in Mexico, only to establish total control of his drug trafficking routes.
His notoriety has not gone unnoticed in prison, where he says he suffers mockery and even harassment from guards.
“My lawyer is a witness to this, as they always dress me in a huge yellow jumpsuit when she visits. It’s three or four times my size. I realize the prison officers laugh at me because they dress me like a clown. What they do to me is degrading.”
The guards, El Chapo says, peek into his cell every ten minutes. In addition, of course, to being under video surveillance 24 hours a day. Every week, every month, every year.
“There are cameras in my room that have night vision. They’re also watching everything I do on camera 24 hours a day, whether I’m lying down, drinking something, using the bathroom, etc.”
The situation seems so serious that El Chapo has requested psychological support, which he claims has also been denied.
“I don’t have access to group therapy. Therefore, I have no one to help me cope with the effects and trauma of solitary confinement. The BOP staff at ADMAX has ignored all my requests for regular visits from a mental health professional.”
El Chapo’s letters are part of one of many attempts by himself and his lawyers to have his prison conditions withdrawn or modified.
His most recent move was the addition of attorney Israel José Encinosa to his legal team to present new legal maneuvers that could ease his prison term, where he is expected to remain until his death.
El Chapo Guzmán, who allegedly ordered people to be tortured, is now pleading for an end to the torture against him.
“This is an unprecedented discrimination against me, in which I am being held in cruel and inhumane conditions. This is a gross abuse of power wit
Source: Milenio
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11 Comments
Agree or disagree but the sad truth is that there are only two men in the world that could put a stop Mexicos ongoing violence. El Chapo and El Mayo.
I disagree at this point I think they are too far gone. 100% the extradition of Chapo and VZ testimony kicked it off. If these 2 things didnt happen they’re would be no war. Mayos kidnapping was just icing of the cake.
Chapo’s extradition set everything in motion; VZ’s testimony wasn’t really necessary, there was simply too much evidence. The twins alone would have been enough to bury him alive.
Sending both back to mexico and hoping for less violence is, is ridiculously naive.
Much more pressure from outside on mexican politicians will be helpful in reducing the violence.
What a lame! He used to torture people with much worse methods, more sadistic methods than those he’s supposedly experiencing, but now he wants to cry? He’s lost respect majorly from his peers and those that use to idolize him for all his whining and complaining. He’s even lost respect for himself personally. Supposedly he was a crazy, balls out, I don’t give a damn, come at me however and with whatever you want, I can take whatever throw at me and some, endure, and come out on top at the end type of dude. What happened? ??? He’s even complaining about how the food doesn’t taste good. What does he expect, a gourmet chef to make his food??? The jack ass is in jail, not a high end resort.
thats because everyone is gangsta until its actually time to do gangsta things. chapo was always an insecure, low intellect, greedy, ignorant sinaloan. he and a handfull of other dudes wanted to be someone in the world so they had to turn to drug trafficking because they couldnt make it in the world as normal human beings. they caused most of the bullshit you see today but they never realized that they were never really the bosses they were just the dogs/servants of the actual people that run the country, people with true power. they arent and werent these brilliant dudes that all of these younglins look up to. im sure a bunch of us on here alone can think of better ways to move dope from point A to point B the only thing is that he majority of us have a decent moral compass.
Maybe they can implant him with deep brain stimulators to help his depression and sorrow of being experimented on like a subhuman Jew from Nazi Germany.
0 sympathy for any of these guys who killed with impunity. You have Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood to name a few, do way more time at the ADX and he can’t handle being in his own head. Sounds like guilt or weakness. The U.S does not care what goes on in Mexico. If the Mexican president doesn’t show support for her country, how can anyone expect a foreign country to correct what the Mexican government has allowed to happen. Suck it up butter cup, you made your bed now lay in it.
I agree. Infarct I think he has it to good. This is such a good example of fuck around and find. Out
Cry me a fucking river !!!! Your responsible for god knows how many deaths in Mexico violently and the millions in the narcotics around the world, this is what happens to the worst of the worst. Those conditions ard like that so you can think daily about the family’s you’ve harmed.
Sol-thank you for posting, I haven’t made it through the entire article but Chapo’s hypochondria is rather comical at this point-somebody send this man some cherry flavored lozenges, and perfume scented puff Kleenex to dab his teary eyes-
Poor dude Cldnt say bye to mommy¿ should we feel bad this pos¿