Nearly six months after his escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico, the drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman Loera, also known as El Chapo or Shorty, has been arrested by the Mexican authorities, according to the Twitter feed of the country’s president, Enrique Pena Nieto .
The arrest came after an intense gun battle this morning in the city of Los Mochis, a seaside area in Guzman’s home state of Sinaloa. “Mission Accomplished: We have him,” read the tweet from Pena Nieto . “I would like to inform the Mexican people that Joaquin Loera Guzman has been detained.”
The mission began shortly before 5am on Friday, after an anonymous tip came in from a citizen concerned about armed men in a nearby home.
The authorities went to the house, where they were fired upon. The operation was conducted by Mexico’s most-trusted military wing, the Marines, who captured Guzman in early 2014, before his escape in July 2015.
The capture of the fugitive drug lord concludes an embarrassing chapter for the government of Pena Nieto, which has been waylaid by a series of security and corruption scandals that reached their low point with Guzman’s daring escape.
Guzman stunned the nation last summer when he stepped into the shower in his cell in the most secure wing of one of the most secure prisons in Mexico and vanished in full view of a video camera.
When guards later entered the cell, they discovered a small hole in the shower floor, through which Guzman had disappeared.
The opening in the shower led to a mile-long tunnel leading to a construction site.
The tunnel was more than 2 feet wide and more than 5 feet high, tall enough for him to walk standing upright, and was burrowed more than 30 feet underground. It had been equipped with lighting, ventilation and a motorcycle on rails.
New York Times