How phone seizure helped to get Shorty

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/24/how-phone-seizure-helped-to-get-shorty

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The seizure of a phone belonging to the son of Joaquin Guzman’s deputy at the US-Mexico border was an important break in the operation that led to the drug lord’s capture, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said on Sunday.

Guzman, known as El Chapo, or Shorty, ran the feared Sinaloa Cartel and was Mexico’s most wanted criminal. But he was captured on Saturday in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa with help from US agents.

It was a major victory for the Mexican government in its fight against powerful drug gangs and for the cause of cooperation between Mexican and US security forces.

The phone that helped lead to Guzman’s downfall belonged to the son of his deputy, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who could now be in line to take over from his boss.

The break came when Zambada’s son, Serafin Zambada-Ortiz, was arrested in November trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States, where he faced sealed drug charges.

“This was one of several important turning points. But it was critical,” the official said.

A lawyer for Zambada-Ortiz, Michael McDonnell of La Habra, California, said no data from his client’s phone or other electronics led U.S. authorities to Guzman. “He didn’t know him ... His father did,” McDonnell said. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information but Serafin Zambada had no connection to Guzman’s arrest, period.”

Zambada-Ortiz, who is a US citizen, entered the United States at Nogales, Arizona, to take care of a visa matter for his wife, the US official said. He apparently did not know that he was facing sealed cocaine and methamphetamine charges in San Diego when he crossed the border.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him and seized his phone. The Drug Enforcement Administration then compared the numbers in the phone with a database of more than 1 billion records, which includes information collected by subpoena, search warrants and arrests during other drug investigations.

The DEA also receives information on Mexican cartel telephone and email data from the US National Security Agency, but US officials declined to say whether the NSA played a role in the case. “We handled this case like we handled many: using technology to work up the chain, person by person, to the top,” the US official said.

Last week, that trail led them to some of Guzman’s senior henchmen but the drug boss himself narrowly escaped, using a network of tunnels and sewers to give his pursuers the slip.

Guzman, 56, was eventually captured on Saturday in a pre-dawn raid on a seaside condominium in the northwestern tourist resort and fishing and shrimp-processing center of Mazatlan, 135 miles (220 km) from Guzman’s suspected base in Culiacan.

“This is the biggest success in the drug war in 20 years, and shows that contrary to what you hear in the press, behind the scenes the US and Mexico have been working well together,” said the U.S. official.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drugs war over the last seven years with much of the violence in western and northern regions that have long been smuggling routes. Many of the victims are tortured and beheaded and their bodies dumped in public places or in mass graves. The violence has ravaged border cities and even beach resorts such as Acapulco.