As the billionaire head of the Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo was used to paying exorbitant prices for everything he wanted. But even the mighty crime boss flinched when he was forced to shell out $500,000 for a pair of long johns.

The thermal bottoms were intended for his son, Ivan Guzmán Salazar, who was serving a three-year sentence for money laundering at the maximum security prison of La Palma (Altiplano) where his father himself had once been incarcerated in the early 1990s.

In the winter of 2007-2008, Ivan’s cell was so cold he asked through various intermediaries — “a corruption pipeline” — to get his father (real name: Joaquín Guzmán Loera) to send the underwear.

Ivan had relied on his dad in the past. In 2005, when he was arrested with three others and charged with double homicide in Jalisco state, he only faced accusations of money laundering “thanks to lawyers hired by El Chapo,” writes Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez in her new book “Emma and the Other Narco Women” (Grijalbo Publishing), out Jan. 25.

A few years later, when Ivan needed to keep warm in prison, El Chapo asked one of his fellow drug traffickers — Edgar “the Barbie” Valdez Villareal — to find out who he had to bribe at the maximum security prison to get his son some warm layers.

“With one phone call, one of the soldiers found the right person,” writes Hernandez. “A guard at the prison could get the clothing to his son.”

The guard charged $100,000 for the favor, but out of greed the two soldiers who had made the contact decided to ask El Chapo for five times the amount. They offered to cut the Barbie in on the deal, but “because he knew who he was dealing with,” Barbie declined the offer, writes Hernandez.

El Chapo paid the full $500k to get his son a couple of T-shirts and thermal underwear, but then he began to investigate. When the Barbie told him what the soldiers had done, the Sinaloa leader dispatched a hit squad. The two men were tortured and killed, their bodies quartered and left on the outskirts of Mexico City’s international airport, according to Hernandez.

A few months later, Ivan was released but another son, Edgar Guzmán Lopez, was gunned down in a hail of bullets. The hit was ordered by El Chapo himself in what proved to be a case of mistaken identity.

And yet, this time, El Chapo was merciful.

“He pardoned the hitmen and there were no reprisals,” writes Hernandez. “The offense of having been charged $500,000 for the long underwear was a lot more serious than the assassination of his son.”

This article was originally posted here

When Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera landed in prison for the first time, he transformed himself into the king of the penal colony — ordering in meals, drugs and women on demand, according to a new book.

“During his years at Puente Grande [prison], El Chapo was a drug and sex addict,” writes Anabel Hernandez in “Emma and the Other Narco Women” (Grijalbo Publishing), out Jan. 25.

The Mexican journalist adds that El Chapo competed with fellow prisoner Hector Luis Palma Salazar, also a Sinaloa drug trafficker, to see who could last the longest during sexual acts and who could accumulate the greatest number of partners.

“They brought in prostitutes from outside, and when that was not possible they paid nurses, cleaners and cooks who worked in the penal system,” Hernandez writes.

The men also had sex with female prisoners who were incarcerated in the men’s section of the facility. Among El Chapo’s lovers was Zulema Yulia Hernandez, 23, who was serving time for robbery. El Chapo, then a married father of five, got her pregnant on at least two occasions and arranged for her to obtain abortions at the prison, according to Hernandez.

Meanwhile, he ordered that an unnamed female prisoner who refused his advances be savagely beaten and raped.

Hernandez writes that the drug kingpin also had food from the best Mexican restaurants delivered to his cell, as well as — perhaps unsurprisingly, given his competition with Salazar — Viagra.

El Chapo, who began his life of crime in the 1970s as a driver for drug trafficker Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, landed in prison in 1993 for his role in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who was gunned down in the parking lot of the international airport in Guadalajara.

The Catholic bishop was caught in the crossfire between rival drug traffickers and mistaken for a drug lord.

In prison, Hernandez writes, El Chapo was able to pay for his lifestyle thanks to regular infusions of cash from his cousin, drug dealer Arturo Beltran Leyva. He also bribed federal guards at the Puente Grande high security prison in Jalisco, according to the book.

The cartel leader escaped in January 2001. The official version was that he left the prison in a laundry cart, but, according to Henandez, El Chapo left the building dressed as a policeman “with the complicity of many federal authorities.”

In 2019, he was sentenced to life on drug trafficking charges in the US and is now serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado, where presumably Viagra isn’t available on tap.

This article was originally posted here

He wanted the dough.

Reputed Genovese crime family associate John “Johnny Pizza” Porcello was indicted in Brooklyn federal court this week for running an illegal sports betting ring and overseeing a loan sharking racket, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

Porcello, 59, raked in the cheese with co-defendant Ronald Seebeck, 56, in the loansharking scheme from September 2016 through August 2021, federal prosecutors charged.

The pair also ran a sports gambling ring of at least five people from 2020 through 2021 that produced more than $2,000 in profits on a given day, the indictment states.

Porcello, of Yonkers, and Seebeck, of Tuckahoe, both pleaded not guilty at their arraignments in Brooklyn federal court and were released on bond, a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office said.

If convicted, they face a maximum of 20 years in prison on the loan sharking charge and five years for the gambling ring.

Porcello, who previously owned a pizzeria in the Bronx, was busted by the feds in 2011 as part of what was billed at the time as the largest mob bust in US history.

The pizzaman was rounded up with 13 fellow wiseguys connected to the Genovese family that year, including several mobsters in the family’s leadership.

Porcello copped to one loan sharking conspiracy count and was sentenced to 13 months in prison, according to court records.

Attorneys for Porcello and Seebeck did not immediately return request for comment.

This article was originally posted here