Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn is rumored to be under investigation by the Mexican government over an interview he conducted with fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán.

Penn's Rolling Stone interview reportedly was set up by Mexican telenovela actress Kate del Castillo and was conducted over a seven-hour period, with several follow-ups by phone. Mexican officials now insist it was that interview, set up in October at an undisclosed hideout in northern Mexico, that led to them Guzmán, according to the AP.

Penn secretly met with Guzmán somewhere in Durango state on October, Mexican authorities told the newswire, where the drug lord was hiding out after escaping prison for the second time. He describes in his profile the strict securities measures El Chapo's men used, but this was not enought to save the drug boss.

Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez stated on Friday that it was El Chapo's contact with celebrities proved to be his downfall.

As El Chapo attempted to escape, authorities say they did not open fire on him, because he was with two women and a child.

They then lost track of him, but were again able to track him down in Los Mochis later that day.

Guzmán had been working with del Castillo in a dogged effort to bring his life story to the big screen. She is also now also under investigation.

"My mind is an instant flip book to the hundreds of pictures and news reports I had scoured," Penn said of the first time he laid eyes on Guzmán. "There is no doubt this is the real deal. He's wearing a casual patterned silk shirt, pressed black jeans, and he appears remarkably well-groomed and healthy for a man on the run."

Guzmán is reported to have shared with Penn he felt "good and happy" to be free, adding that the pressure of being on the run was normal for him given his lifestyle and reputation.

As for his drug dealing history, Guzmán reportedly told Penn, "If there was no consumption, there would be no sales. It is true that consumption, day after day, becomes bigger and bigger. So it sells and sells."

In the past, Forbes magazine ranked Guzmán as one of the world's richest men, and drug enforcement agents have modestly pegged his Sinaloa cartel's revenues at more than $3 billion annually.

Penn said it was even more difficult to get to Guzmán after news of the actor's trip to Mexico made its way to DEA officials.

"Booking any flight to Mexico now would surely raise red flags," he wrote. "I make a plan to hide myself in the trunk of a friend's car and be driven to a waiting rental vehicle."

After months on the run, Guzmán was captured and immediately shipped back to the Altiplano prison, the same from which he escaped earlier this summer. He was previously on the run for more than 10 years after escaping from another Mexican prison.

Once described by the U.S. Treasury as "the most powerful drug trafficker in the world," Guzmán is estimated to have supplied roughly 25 percent of all the drugs that flow into the U.S. from Mexico.

Mexican officials are now rumored to be considering extraditing him to the U.S. to face trial on an array of federal drug charges.

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