“El Chapo” narrowly avoided death four days after his sit-down with Sean Penn when dozens of Mexican marines raided the jungle hideout where the interview took place.
One of the marines who converged on the mountaintop ranch had Joaquin Guzman in his sights, but didn’t pull the trigger because the drug lord had a young girl in his arms, Reuters reported, citing Mexican media.
The remote hideaway featured lookout posts on the surrounding peaks, as well as its own communications network for Guzman and his personal security force.
Following his capture Friday, Guzman told authorities he escaped that raid by scrambling down the hillside before meeting up with one of his bodyguards.
The two men then spent the next 10 days on the run, traveling only at night and surviving on handouts from residents of a rural area in the Mexican state of Durango, part of the drug-producing region known as the “Golden Triangle.”
Mexican authorities lost track of the notorious fugitive before tracing him to the safe house in Los Mochis where a deadly gun battle early Friday led to his capture.
Officials have said Penn’s Oct. 2 visit with Guzman proved instrumental in helping nab him, and photos that emerged Monday showed the two-time Oscar winner was under surveillance when he arrived south of the border.
Penn has been largely silent since Rolling Stone published his 10,000-word account of meeting with Mexico’s most wanted man, but CBS “This Morning” co-host Charlie Rose said Tuesday that Penn had agreed to an interview with him.