Actor, activist and part time journalist, Sean Penn has interviewed El Chapo for Rolling Stone Magazine.
The El Chapo and Sean Penn conversation touched on several different subjects ranging from Donald Trump, to Hollywood, to even the drug lord’s jail escape.
The Academy Award-winning actor met with Joaquín Guzman Loera a.k.a El Chapo, while he was on the run from Mexican authorities.
The two ate, drank and talked for seven hours at Guzman’s secret compound following the drug lord’s second escape from prison. During their conversation, Sean Penn, brought up several hot topics.
Here are five things you need to know about the ‘Rolling Stone’ article.
1.Sean Penn knew he was being followed by the government
Sean Penn wrote that during his preparation for the interview, Penn used “burner phones”. For example, Penn revealed he had “one per contact, one per day, destroy, burn, buy, balancing levels of encryption, mirroring through Blackphones, anonymous email addresses, unsent messages accessed in draft form.”
The day he landed in Mexico, Penn was “suspicious” of everything that was happening around him, he wrote. “I search the skies for helicopters. There is no question in my mind but that the DEA and the Mexican government are tracking our movements.”
“I search the skies for helicopters. There is no question in my mind but that the DEA and the Mexican government are tracking our movements.”
2. El Chapo was extremely interested in Hollywood
El Chapo, who was captured because he was casting actors to work on his biopic, asked Sean Penn about the film industry and then argued that it’s a waste of money. “He is interested in the movie business and how it works,” Penn wrote. “He’s unimpressed with its financial yield. The P&L high side doesn’t add up to the downside risk for him. He suggests to us that we consider switching our career paths to the oil business.”
3. El Chapo was proud of his drug empire
El Chapo didn’t hold back when he talked about his drug industry. “I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world. I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats,” Guzman said.
Guzman also explained how he started selling drugs at the young age of 15. “The only way to have money to buy food, to survive, is to grow poppy, marijuana, and at that age, I began to grow it, to cultivate it and to sell it. That is what I can tell you,” according to Sean Penn wrote.
“The only way to have money to buy food, to survive, is to grow poppy, marijuana, and at that age, I began to grow it, to cultivate it and to sell it. That is what I can tell you,” according to Sean Penn wrote.
Guzman also touched on the violence in the drug industry. “Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more. But do I start trouble? Never,” he said.
4. El Chapo also explains his escape out of prison
You may recall when El Chapo escaped out of a maximum-security prison last year through a hole and mile long tunnel that was equipped with lighting and oxygen tanks. Penn wrote that a lot of work, planning and money was spent on that escape.”I will discover that his already accomplished engineers had been flown to Germany last year for three months of extensive additional training necessary to deal with the low-lying water table beneath the prison,” Penn wrote. “A tunnel equipped with a pipe-track-guided motorcycle with an engine modified to function in the minimally oxygenized space, allowing El Chapo to drop through a hole in his cell’s shower floor, into its saddle and ride to freedom.”
5. El Chapo talked about Donald Trump
The reality star and GOP presidential frontrunner was talked about, which is a big deal because El Chapo was rumored to put a $100 million bounty on the politician’s head. Donald Trump was so alarmed that he contacted the FBI to investigate the threat he received via Twitter. “I mention Trump. El Chapo smiles, ironically saying, ‘Ah! Mi amigo!'” Penn wrote.
