Mexican drug-cartel leader captured

CULIACAN, Mexico

- After fruitlessly pursuing one of the world's top drug lords for years, authorities finally drew close to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman using a cellphone found at a house where drugs were stored.

The phone belonging to a Guzman aide was recovered with clues from a U.S. wiretap and provided a key break in the long chase to find Guzman, officials told the Associated Press yesterday.

Another big leap forward came after police analyzed information from a different wiretap that pointed them to a beachfront condo where the legendary leader of the Sinaloa cartel was hiding, according to a U.S. government official and a senior federal law enforcement official.

When he was at last taken into custody with his beauty-queen wife, Guzman had a military-style assault rifle in the room, but he didn't go for it.

A day after the arrest, it was not yet clear what would happen next to Guzman, except that he would be the focus of a lengthy and complicated legal process to decide which country gets to try him first.

When he was finally in handcuffs, the man who eluded Mexican authorities for more than a decade looked pudgy, bowed and middle-age in a white button-down shirt and beltless black jeans.

Now 56, he had successfully eluded authorities since escaping from prison in 2001 in a laundry truck.

He is likely to face a host of charges in Mexico related to his role as the head of the cartel, which is believed to sell cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine in some 54 countries. He also faces extensive allegations in the United States.

Under his leadership, the cartel grew deadlier and more powerful, taking over much of the lucrative trafficking routes along the U.S. border. Guzman watched from western Mexico's rugged mountains as authorities captured or killed the leaders of every rival group challenging Sinaloa's perch at the top of global drug trafficking.