Documentary recounts monkey’s role in El Chapo manhunt
Original reporting: Infobae México
What happened
Infobae México reports that a new N+ Docs series traces how a cigarette-butt DNA match, intercepted calls and the transport of the Guzmán family’s pet monkey helped investigators confirm his Durango hideout after the 2015 Altiplano escape.
Reporting and context
A pet monkey helped Mexican investigators pinpoint Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s mountain hideout after his July 2015 prison escape, according to Infobae México’s account of the new N+ Docs series Operación Cisne Negro. The series premiered October 27 on ViX and reconstructs the intelligence trail behind his eventual recapture.
Botas belonged to Guzmán and Emma Coronel’s twin daughters, Emaly and María Joaquina, who named him after Dora the Explorer’s companion. The family left the animal near the Altiplano prison when Coronel and the girls moved to Sinaloa shortly before the escape.
The investigation began with a cigarette butt found in the warehouse where Guzmán’s 1.4-kilometer escape tunnel emerged. Infobae México reported that DNA linked it to Édgar Coronel Aispuro, Emma’s brother. Official reports cited in the series say he entered the tunnel on July 11, 2015, left with Guzmán and accompanied him by vehicle and aircraft. The DNA finding allowed prosecutors to obtain judicial authorization to intercept his telephone communications.
Investigators heard requests to recover the monkey from a house in the Metepec area of the State of Mexico. By then, Guzmán had reunited with his family in Bastantitas de Abajo, a community in Tamazula, Durango. The documentary reconstruction describes Sinaloa Cartel cabins there, including one equipped for Guzmán with television, hot water and drainage.
Telephone signals along a flight route had already narrowed the search to eight possible locations in Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango, the report says. Recovering Botas supplied the missing confirmation. After the twins asked for their pet, Coronel Aispuro tried to arrange air transport through environmental authorities, veterinarians and Aeroméxico. A veterinarian refused a permit because he could not establish the monkey’s legal origin.
He instead put the animal in a box in the trunk of a convertible Mustang. Intelligence officers followed the car to the Durango mountains, confirming which of the eight locations was the hideout, series director Héctor Lazo explained in remarks cited by Infobae.
The Navy then concentrated operations in the Golden Triangle. Guzmán escaped an October 6, 2015, aerial assault at La Piedrosa, Sinaloa, the account says. The strategy shifted to forcing him out of the mountains: the Army burned drug crops, blocked 50 clandestine airstrips and increased its presence.
Guzmán was recaptured in Los Mochis on January 8, 2016, after fleeing through storm drains and taking two cars. The first broke down; the second was reported stolen and intercepted by Federal Police. He was extradited to the United States on January 19, 2017, and received a life sentence in July 2019.
Original reporting: Infobae México.