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

A former US customs agent, Steven DeMayo, gave his testimony to the Brooklyn court this morning.

Mr DeMayo previously investigated how the infamous Sinaloa cartel was smuggling cocaine to the US. He found 2,000 kilos stashed at a warehouse in New York in 2003.

 It seems many haven't been particularly enthralled with today's testimonies...

Today's proceedings may have slowed slightly in this lengthy hearing, but major revelations have come to light this week in the trial of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzman.

A key government witness, former Colombian kingpin Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, told the jury explosive details of alleged drug smuggling from Mexico to the US.

Ramirez Abadia testified how his Norte del Valle cartel used a fleet of planes and boats to ship tons of cocaine to Mexico, where the Sinaloa cartel was tasked with smuggling it into the United States under the direction of Guzman and others. Prosecutors say the massive amounts of drugs and cash flowing back and forth across the U.S. border in the 1990s and early 2000s were documented in ledgers that looked like mundane business records.

Seeking to drive home the human toll of the violent drug trade, defence attorney William Purpura got Ramirez Adadia to confirm the ledgers also showed the expenses for murders for hire — $45,000 to have three people killed and $338,776 in another instance because, he said, so many hit men were involved.

The dead included a top lieutenant rubbed out in prison after his arrest merely because, Ramirez Adadia suggested, "he knew a lot about my organisation." Another time, the witness said he lured a mutinous cartel member to a meeting where the victim and his entourage were slaughtered in a gangland-style ambush, their bodies then loaded in pickup trucks for disposal.

Ramirez Abadia also acknowledged lower-level operatives in the New York City area were knocked off under suspicion of stealing or snitching, including a woman in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Her husband and son also perished in the process, according to the defence.

Once he learned he had been indicted in the U.S., Ramirez Adadia fled to Brazil, where he made his face look like a theatrical mask with implants and injections. He also used disguises for photos on fake identification cards with various aliases in a bid to hide his identity, which ultimately failed.

While it has been a relatively slow day for the trial today, there was the first mention for Pedro and Margarito Flores. 

The pair are twin brothers from Chicago who flipped on El Chapo and secretly taped their phone calls with him, before handing the recordings to drug enforcement agents.  

DEA agent Adrian Ibañez described a meeting with Pedro Flores in 2008.

It is unclear when, or if, the Flores twins are going to testify in the trail. They are both currently serving 14-year sentences in federal custody.

The court also heard from a coast guard officer, who described some of the drug shipments he had seen.

One included 237 bales of cocaine - with each bale weighing up to 50 pounds (22 kilograms).

Court ended early today thanks to a transportation issue for a witness that was due to appear.

So, with that, we will back for more from the trial tomorrow.