El Chapo Guzman Could Have Been Hospitalized After Suffering Heart Attack, Say Mexican Police

Reforma reported on Thursday that Mexican police are investigating a tip passed to them from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, may have been briefly interned in a private hospital in Jalisco state after having suffered a heart attack in mid-November. The DEA based the information, which was forwarded on to the Mexican Department of Justice (PGR) and other law-enforcement agencies, on conversations between supposed members of the Sinaloa cartel intercepted from a Guadalajara radio frequency.

ADN Politico reports that the PGR had executed a search for the drug lord in a network of hospitals located in Guadalajara, Zapopan in Jalisco state, as well as in Manzanillo, in nearby Colima state, though without success. Officials say the search was carried out between the 15^th and 20^th of November. Authorities last came close to nabbing El Chapo, who has been a fugitive since 2001, when he escaped from a Jalisco jail, in Febuary of 2012, when federal police stormed a house in Los Cabos, Baja California which he was said to have rented in order to meet with a prostitute.

A rash of recent reports have seen top law-enforcement officials in Mexico paying homage to Guzmán’s prowess as a businessman and cartel leader. Guillermo Valdés, former director of Mexico's National Security and Investigation Center (CISEN), told El Pais in mid December that El Chapo was a “business genius”, while top officials from the PGR said last week in an interview with Milenio that he had proven remarkably effective at keeping in line subordinates who in other cartels had often broken ranks and established their own drug-running operation.