Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo sentenced to life in US prison, given additional sentence of 30 years, fined $12.6 billion

El Chapo was convicted in February in US federal court on various charges, including smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. New York: Once one of the world’s most powerful and notorious criminals, Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to life imprisonment— the mandatory punishment for a host of crimes spanning a quarter-century. In the Brooklyn courtroom, Guzman said prayers from supporters had given him “strength to endure this great torture,” which he called “one of the most inhuman that I have ever experienced… a lack of respect for my human dignity.” Complaining bitterly that he was unable to hug his twin daughters, who did not attend the hearing, Guzman said “the United States is no better than any other corrupt country that you do not respect.” Guzman — whose moniker “El Chapo” translates to “Shorty” — is considered the most influential drug lord since Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, who was killed in a police shootout in 1993. A Colombian woman who prosecutors say survived a hit the kingpin ordered tearfully read a statement in court Wednesday, saying the escape cost her “a high price — I lost my family, my friends, I became a shadow without a name.” Prosecutors won their request to tack on a symbolic extra 30 years in prison for the use of firearms in his business, which Cogan said he imposed because the “overwhelming evil is so severe.” Guzman launched his career working in the cannabis fields of his home state of Sinaloa. In Sinaloa’s capital Culiacan, 46-year-old Lupita Ramos told AFP Guzman “was also a good person who helped people in need.” Miguel Angel Vega, a journalist and drug trafficking expert, said the US incarceration of Guzman, who spectacularly escaped twice from Mexican prison, would do little to end the violence plaguing the region.