El Chapo trial: Joaquín Guzman joked about arming infant daughter with AK47 in texts to wife, court hears

Chupeta has revealed more about El Azul, whose real name is Juan Jose Esparragoza, and the power he continued to have even while in prison. 

The Colombian drug lord testified that he was required to receive the blessing of El Azul over an agreement he made with El Chapo and the rest of the leader of the Sinaloa cartel surrounding the cocaine deliveries and shipments. 

Chupeta testified that El Azul’s prison quarters in Mexico City were unlike typical situations for prisoners, in that he was provided a full section of the facilities along with a multitude of other privileges. 

“I saw liquor, whiskey, marijuana, there were weapons there and whatever food you wanted,” the Colombian drug lord said Monday. 

He has described El Azul as “a godfather,” revealing he visited him in prison along with El Chapo, Vicente Carillo, El Mayo and Amado Carillo. 

Chupeta has revealed the extent of his drug deliveries to Mexico throughout the early 1990s, testifying that he controlled New York City street prices for cocaine after receiving the blessing from El Azul to use boat shipments rather than planes. 

“Many times I would stash it so that way the price would go up because there would be less cocaine in the streets, then I would put my cocaine out and have bigger profits,” the Colombian drug lord said Monday.

Last week, Colombian drug lord Chupeta appeared to avoid making eye contact with El Chapo, causing attorneys to request during a sidebar conversation that the judge forces him to be within viewing distance of the Sinaloa cartel leader. 

Chupeta has reconstructed his face in order to avoid the detection of law enforcement, earning himself the nickname, "the man of a thousand faces." 

The judge agreed to request Chupeta adjusts his seating outside of the purview of the jury in order to avoid "implications". 

As previously noted last week, the Colombian drug lord Chupeta suffers from “severe prostate issues” which require him to take multiple breaks from court in order to use the restroom. 

During a sidebar conversation last week, the judge agreed to inform the jury that he would be taking additional breaks, as his lawyers restricted his liquid intake throughout the trial. 

Among the fascinating stories revealed in Colombian drug lord Chupeta’s testimony Monday included one account in which a ship captain he said was addicted to cocaine sunk a ship travelling towards Mexico with nearly $400m in drugs aboard. 

As the Mexican ship captain began hallucinating, he reportedly thought he saw ghosts and vessels belonging to the US Coast Guard and sunk the ship shortly after.

After the boat with roughly $400m in cocaine was sunk by the Mexican captain, Chupeta and Amado Carillo Fuentes took a helicopter to the scene in order to search for the remains. Amado continued to do so for about a year, until he surprisingly managed to locate the boat.

A deep sea diver was then sent to recover the missing drugs, Chupeta testified.

In another tale Chupeta recounted from his days as a Colombian drug lord working with El Chapo, the witness said he sent a boat with 14 tons of cocaine on it to Mexico to be intercepted at the normal pickup spot in the Pacific Ocean. 

However, for some reason, El Chapo had not sent his boat to pick up the shipment that day. 

Chupeta called Amado Carillo Fuentes to pick up the shipment, which angered El Chapo. His deputy subsequently kidnapped two of Chupeta’s men in Mexico, triggering exhaustive negotiations for their safe return. 

Chupeta will be returning this afternoon to continue testifying in the El Chapo trial in Brooklyn. 

So far, he’s revealed how he and El Chapo supposedly worked together to send massive shipments of cocaine to Mexico by boat during the early 1990s, escaping Mexican authorities with paid bribes and avoiding observance from US law enforcement. He says El Chapo maintained strong relationships with authorities in both countries. 

Chupeta recounted the decision to switch from using planes to ship cocaine to Mexico to boats, saying the move was made when US officials began tracking the Colombian drug lord’s smuggling habits from his home country by using radars. 

The boats initially began meeting for delivery exchanges just 10 miles off the coast, though they were later forced to move as far as 1,000 miles offshore in order to avoid detection from authorities.