World

The Takedown of a Cartel Kingpin

The end of the manhunt didn't match the mystique of the target. Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, kingpin of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was finally nabbed around sunrise on Feb. 22, when Mexican commandos stormed a cream-colored building in the seaside city of Mazatlán. The criminal giant known as Shorty was sleeping shirtless inside a modest apartment with white tile floors, pink suitcases strewn across a sagging mattress. After a 13-year chase, he was taken without a fight.

The historic capture was the product of transnational collaboration--a commodity that has often been in short supply. When...

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