Drug kingpin

A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin, or narcotrafficker is a person who controls a sizable network of persons involved in the illegal drug trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they are normally not directly in possession of something illegal, but are insulated from the actual trade in drugs by several layers of underlings. The prosecution of drug lords is therefore usually the result of carefully planned infiltration into their networks, often using informants from within the organisation.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Guzmán is the most significant drug lord in history. He is well known for his use of sophisticated tunnels—similar to the one located in Douglas, Arizona—to smuggle cocaine from Mexico into the United States in the early 1990s. In 1993, a 7.3-ton shipment of his cocaine, concealed in cans of chili peppers and destined for the United States, was seized in Tecate, Baja California. That same year he barely escaped an ambush by the Tijuana Cartel led by Ramon Arellano Felix and his gunmen. After being captured in Guatemala, he was jailed in 1993 and in 1995 he was moved to the maximum-security prison called Puente Grande, but paid his way out of prison and hid in a laundry van as it drove through the gates. On 22 February 2014, Guzmán was arrested again. He is considered a folk hero in the narcotics world, celebrated by musicians who write and perform narcocorridos (drug ballads) extolling his exploits. For example, Los Traviezos recorded a ballad extolling his life on the run. In July 2015, Guzman escaped a second time from a maximum-security prison through a hole in a shower floor that led to a mile-long tunnel, ending at a nearby house. A large-scale manhunt ensued. On 8 January 2016, Guzmán was captured by the Mexican Marines.

Jorge Alberto Rodríguez, also known as Don Cholito, is a notorious Colombian-Puerto Rican drug lord from the Bronx, New York, who headed The 400 criminal organization, a dismantled secret cell of the Cali Cartel. Pulled into the drug trade at age 12, he left home at age 14 to begin working for his father, Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, who headed the Cali Cartel. Within six years he had made hundreds of millions by shipping drugs from Colombia to nearly every U.S. state. He was one of the most-ruthless international drug lords unknown to law enforcement or governments. During that time, the nation's murder rate and cocaine-related hospital emergencies doubled. He was arrested in 1990 in Tallahassee, Florida and sentenced to a 25-year prison term for a number of federal violations. Following his conviction, Rodriguez continued to operate his illicit business from behind bars, importing as much as 12,500 kilograms (27,600 lb) into the U.S. every month and ordering numerous murders of informants, witnesses, and law-enforcement officials in the U.S. and Colombia. He reigned and flourished while incarcerated until he was placed in court-ordered high-security isolation in 1994.

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