El Chapo’s former asylum to be raffled off in Mexico

A house from which boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán fled as security forces moved in to arrest him in 2014 is going to be raffled off in Mexico. The home in Culiacán, within the state of Sinaloa, was the scene of 1 of Guzmán’s dramatic escapes, after he used a storm drain to evade a manhunt. The two-bedroom property is worth about $184,000 (£133,000). Guzmán, the infamous former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, is serving life in an exceedingly US prison. He was one amongst the largest traffickers of medicine to the US and, in 2009, entered Forbes’ list of the world’s richest men at number 701, with an estimated worth of $1bn. The house, which contains a white facade and doesn’t appear luxurious on the skin, is going to be raffled off by the govt. on 15 September, the day before the Mexican national holiday, the govt. said. Guzmán, who escaped from a maximum-security prison in 2001, was tracked right down to the sanctuary on 16 February 2014 by Mexican marines. After managing to escape through a tunnel under a bath that connected to the storm drain, he was arrested six days later within the city of Mazatlán, also in Sinaloa. In 2015, he escaped from jail again, through a tunnel dug within the showers, but was recaptured six months later. He was extradited to the US in 2017 and convicted, two years later, on numerous counts including the distribution of cocaine and heroin, illegal firearms possession, and hiding. At his trial witnesses testified that he had buried a person alive and drugged and raped girls as young as 13. The raffle also will include a mansion that belonged to former Juárez cartel leader Amado Carrillo within the exclusive area of El Pedregal in the southern Mexican capital. it’s estimated to be worth about $3.8m. In all, 22 properties are raffled, with a complete value of $12.5m. In May, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the money raised would go “back to the people” and “help to shop for [Covid-19] vaccines”. The government held an analogous raffle in 2020 during which the highest prize was the presidential jet. But the specially outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner didn’t sell and has become a source of mockery as people questioned what ordinary Mexicans could do with such an aircraft.