Thread by @alanfeuer

Given the astonishing revelation at the Chapo trial yesterday that the kingpin's wife, Emma Coronel, was deeply involved in planning his famous 2015 tunnel-and-motorcycle escape from prison, the severe conditions of his pre-trial confinement are starting to make more sense,

Among the restrictions was that Emma was not allowed to visit him in the Manhattan federal jail where he was held since his extradition in Jan 2017. The judge even denied a request to let the couple hug each other before the trial began. We now know why those limits were imposed.

According to yesterday's witness, Damaso Lopez Nunez, Emma was the chief intermediary between her husband and his closest crew on the outside, ferrying his orders to them to execute the escape plan.

Apparently, she served as Chapo's messenger not just once, but twice. After Chapo was re-re-captured after escaping Altiplano, Emma again relayed orders from her husband to his crew in a second failed attempt to break him out.

When the special administrative measures, as they're called, were initially imposed on Chapo, it seemed at the time a bit like overkill. Same for when Judge Cogan denied the spousal hug motion. The government filed a flurry of secret motions about all of this early on.

Of course, prosecutors knew at the time what no one else did. That Emma was, by the account of one of Chapo's closest aides, neck deep in the planning of one gonzo jail break and the attempt to perpetrate a second.

As a sidenote Damaso was the security director at Puente Grande prison just before Chapo escape from there in 2001. He denied being involved in that escape, saying a low-level laundry worker named Chito working on his own put Chapo in a laundry cart and wheeled him out the door.

The defense was skeptical of his account on cross-examination yesterday, suggesting that a mere prison laundry worker could not have broken the crime lord out without help.

As a demonstrative aide--not official evidence--the defense displayed this cartoon rendering of Chito and Chapo to the jury.
It gets at what a bizarre geyser of insanity this trial has become.

On a more serious note at today's trial we're likely to hear more about the murder of Javier Valdez, cofounder of the Sinaloa newspaper Rio Doce. Shortly before he was gunned down in Culiacan in 2017, Valdez interviewed Damaso. Yesterday Damaso blamed the killing on Chapo's sons.

Speaking of Chapo's sons Damaso has shed light on his complex relationship with them. Yesterday he described how they worked together to break Chapo out of Altiplano in 2015. Today he said that after his arrest they stole his & his family's property and "killed several people."

In surprise testimony yesterday he said in 2014 before Chapo went to prison he wanted Damaso and his sons to turn themselves in & cut a deal with American authorities. The plan was serious enuf that an American lawyer was brought to Culiacan to discuss "an approach" to the US.

While that may sound strange, Vicente Zambada Niebla told a similar story, saying Chapo encouraged him to leave the cartel and strike a deal w/the US. Chapo, he said, even offered to reach out to his "contacts" in the DEA to make it happen.

There's certainly no clear evidence that Damaso and Chapo's sons ever tried to cut a deal with the US. And after Chapo's most recent arrest leading to his extradition, there was dangerous bad blood between Damaso and the sons.

In fact, after Damaso was himself arrested, his own son, Damaso Lopez Serrano, turned himself in to US border officials in July 2017. He had become embroiled in a violent power struggle over control of the cartel with Chapo's sons.

Imagine that on your first day at a new job you are made to fly in a tiny Cessna with a guy name Fantasma and when you land at a makeshift airstrip deep in the Sierra Madre mountains someone walks up and hands you an AK-47, a flak vest and a rocket propelled grenade launcher.

The rules of your new workplace are explained to you.
You will be on for one month, one for one month.
You will be sleeping in what amounts to a hole in the ground you have to dig yourself.
Under no circumstances will you approach the boss.
If he wants you, he'll call you.

That's pretty much what Isaias Valdez Rios, aka Memin, said today at Chapo's trial. Memin, a former Mexican special forces guy, spent 10 years working for Chapo mostly in what he called the kingpin's "security circle." Memin was also a pilot and did security for Chapo's sons.

Memin is the government's final cooperating witness and is likely to testify about violence that Chapo committed personally: probably the murders of two members of a rival cartel who he is said to have shot at point blank range, ordering his lackeys to dispose of the bodies.

Memin has already talked about his first conversation w/Chapo which took place 10 to 15 days after he arrived a at mountain hideout called The Sky.
Chapo's first words: "Dude, how you doing?"
As Memin said this, he put on a version of Chapo's high-pitched nasal Sinaloan voice.

Chapo wanted to know about Memin's time in the special forces and how long he served (7 years.) He also told his new gunmen to stay on his toes.
"He said, 'Well here, you really have to be on the look out.'"

At first, Memin said, his pay was pretty slim: 2000 pesos a week. ($105 at the current rate.) Later, he made up to 14000 a week.
The boss meanwhile had a pair of matching diamond-handled pistols inset w/a panther design--one panther white, one black.

What's coming next is not for the faint of heart. Please be advised.

Memin just described two gruesome torture/murders that Chapo was involved in 2006 and 2007. The first involved a member of the Arrellano Felix cartel, the second of two members of the Zetas.
The stories are very grim. Zetas first.

It was after dark when Chapo's gunmen brought the Zetas up to the roaring bonfire, slumped over the backs of their ATVs.
The rival narcos had brutally beaten for hours. They were like "ragged dolls," Memin said. "The bones in their bodies were fractured. They couldn't move."

As the ATVs came to a stop, Chapo got on one and his chief of security got on the other. The two rode the vehicles straight up to the open-air blaze so that the Zetas lying on the back could see the flames.

Chapo climbed off his ATV and loaded his rifle as his men tossed the Zetas to the ground. He put the barrel to the first Zeta's head.
"Fuck your mother," he said, pulling the trigger.
He did the same to the second.

It was then he told his gunmen what to do with the bodies.
"Put them in the bonfire," Memin recalled him saying. "I don't want any bones to remain."
So it was done.
All night long Chapo's men fed the fire, Memin said.
Then, in the morning, they ground up whatever bones remained.

This is the first time jurors have heard graphic testimony like this. It's also the first they've heard about violence Chapo committed himself. The testimony of Memin, the govt's last cooperating witness, put the proverbial nail in Chapo's coffin. It was a gut punch to the jury.

The story about the Arrellano Felix guy was as bad if not worse.
Chapo had the man brought bound and blindfolded into a graveyard. He reeked, Memin said, after being locked in a hen house for days. He had been tortured so badly w/an iron that his t-shirt was seared into his skin.

The man's grave had already been dug. Tho he couldn't see it through the blindfold, it gaped behind him.
Chapo started to interrogate the man and in the middle of his answers, shot him with a small caliber pistol.
"Remove his handcuffs and bury him," Memin recalled him saying.

As Memin and another sicario bent to fetch the body, they realized that the small bullet hadn't quite killed the man. He was still gasping for air.
"And that's how we dumped him in the hole and buried him," he said.