Sinaloa Cartel Boss El Chapo Complains About Mistreatment in Colorado Prison, Says He's Hungry and Lost a Nail Due to Fungal Infection
Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera has complained about being mistreated in a Colorado prison he's currently being held in.
In a seven-page letter, El Chapo, 65, said the treatment he received in the maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado was "cruel and unfair," and it was taking a toll on his health.
According to The Mirror, El Chapo wrote in English that due to the treatment at the ADX Florence "supermax" prison, he now suffers from "headaches, memory loss, muscle cramps, stress, and depression."
He added that the treatment he received was also causing him to suffer from psychological problems.
"I pray that this court intervenes," El Chapo noted.
Sinaloa Cartel Boss El Chapo Suffers From Foot Fungus Infection
El Chapo noted that the constant check-ups and lack of medical care had caused him "extreme stress and even a foot infection" from sharing the nail clippers with other prisoners.
The Sinaloa Cartel boss cited an occasion when the guards did not give him the necessary items he needed for a foot fungus infection, which stemmed from nail clippers shared with other inmates and not previously disinfected.
El Chapo noted that it was too late by the time he received the treatment as he had already lost one of his nails.
According to Borderland Beat, the Sinaloa Cartel boss demanded that he be allowed to communicate with other inmates and that the conditions in his cell be improved since he feels uncomfortable.
"I am ruled out of having any verbal contact or communication with other prisoners... I have no human contact other than when the guards put on and take off my shackles," El Chapo said.
He noted that since he arrived in the United States, he has not been allowed "to speak to my wife." El Chapo's wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro," is also currently in jail, serving a three-year sentence, for helping her husband run his multibillion-dollar drug empire.
"I have suffered a lot being in solitary confinement... My blood pressure has risen, leading to headaches and anxiety. Sometimes I forget things," El Chapo said.
The Sinaloa Cartel boss added that "they serve me little food, and I often stay hungry."
Borderland Beat reported that El Chapo's cell measures seven by 12 feet and has a small window through which his food is delivered. It is located in the so-called "Unit H," where the most dangerous prisoners are found, among them, several terrorists.
The Sinaloa Cartel founder also lamented the "extremely hot" air from the ventilation system that comes out four to five times nightly, waking him up.
"Every night, this causes my heart to start beating rapidly, raising my blood pressure... I have raised this issue with staff, but no one has done anything," El Chapo noted.
Even though he doesn't share a cell and is in his cell 24 hours a day, the Sinaloa Cartel boss added that prison officials enter his cell "several times a week to do routine searches, when they move and touch all my belongings."
The Case of Sinaloa Cartel Founder El Chapo
The Sinaloa Cartel is considered one of the world's most powerful drug-trafficking syndicates. The Mexican drug cartel has been known for carrying out assassinations, murders, and torture to protect its turf.
The group was founded in the late 1980s and headed by El Chapo. The Mexican drug kingpin was arrested and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 1993.
El Chapo escaped from prison in 2001 and was apprehended again in 2014 in Sinaloa, Mexico. The Sinaloa Cartel boss again escaped from prison through a tunnel the following year.
In January 2016, Mexican officials announced that El Chapo has been captured again. He was extradited to the U.S. the following year.
El Chapo was sentenced to spend the rest of his days in the ADX Florence, the most secure federal prison in the U.S. He is serving a life sentence in prison after being found guilty in 2019 of all 10 federal charges he faced.
El Chapo was accused of illegally importing millions of kilos of cocaine from Mexico to the U.S., along with significant quantities of heroin and marijuana.
According to prosecutors, the Sinaloa Cartel founder allegedly used murder, torture, kidnapping, bribing officials, and "other illegal methods to control territory throughout Mexico and to subdue opposition."
In January, a federal appeals court in New York has upheld the life sentence of El Chapo after his request for a new trial was dismissed.
In their decision, the three judges rejected some of El Chapo's arguments, including jury bias, "deplorable" jail conditions, and the U.S. government selectively targeting him for prosecution.
Last month, one of the lawyers of the Sinaloa Cartel boss said they would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case as they believed that El Chapo was really being treated unfairly.
"They don't take him out into the open air. They don't take him out for a single day. We have a lot of problems because they don't treat him medically if he gets sick," lawyer Mariel Colon Miro told Milenio.
"Requests were ignored. He can't have two 15-minute calls a month... The government claims that they need to have him under those restrictions because he can pass some message," she added.
Colon Miro further noted that some basic rights, like access to water and toothache treatment, were also violated inside the prison.
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Mary Webber
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