In 2013, he was named "Public Enemy No. 1" by the Chicago Crime Commission, only the second person to get that distinction after U.S. prohibition-era crime boss Al Capone.
In Mexico, Guzman is likely to face a host of charges related to his role as the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the country's most powerful drug trafficking organization and a key player in the years-long violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 2006.
But grand juries in at least seven U.S. federal district courts, including Chicago, San Diego, New York and Texas, already have handed up indictments for Guzman on a variety of charges, ranging from smuggling cocaine and heroin into the United States to participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise involving murder and racketeering.
Federal officials in Chicago were among the first to say they wanted Guzman tried in their jurisdiction. On Sunday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Tiscione in Brooklyn, New York, became the second.
In an email on Sunday Tiscione said, "Yes, we will be seeking his extradition," adding it would be up to Washington to make the final call on whether Guzman is extradited to the U.S. and, if so, where he is prosecuted.
A US Justice Department official speaking on condition of anonymity because it's a matter of sensitive diplomatic discussions said that decisions regarding extradition have not been made. The official said that decisions regarding extradition would be made in consultation with Mexico.
Mexico convicted the man whose nickname translates to "Shorty" on drug trafficking and murder charges in 1993. Guzman had served less than half of his 20-year prison sentence when he escaped in 2001. The Mexican government is almost certain to levy a host of new charges related not only to the break out but also to his role in running the global drug-empire that the Sinaloa Cartel has become.
Calls for his extradition to the United States started just hours after word spread of Guzman's arrest Saturday morning at a condominium in Mazatlan, a beach resort town on Mexico's Pacific Coast.
Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office, told the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper Saturdaythat he believes federal prosecutors there have the best case against Guzman in the United States.
"I fully intend for us to have him tried here," Riley said.
George Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary who studies Mexico's cartels, said domestic politics in Mexico are likely to play a significant role in how the Mexican government decides Guzman's legal future.
"It's going to be a completely political decision," Grayson said. "It's going to be framed by how does this help... in next year's congressional elections."
Mexico's president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has taken a starkly different approach to fighting the violent drug cartels than his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.
Calderon routinely touted his administration's fight against the criminal gangs and sent thousands of police and military troops to various hot spots around the country to take them on. But Pena Nieto, who took office in late 2012, has been more muted on the criminal enterprises, instead championing other domestic concerns, including the economy and education.
Guzman's arrest by Mexican federal forces with the help of the DEA, the U.S. Marshal Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement is already seen as one of the biggest achievements for Pena Nieto's young administration. And he may not want to relinquish the win quickly.
"It's my personal opinion that they are going to say they want to hang on to him simply because of that fact that he is the crown jewel of the Pena Nieto administration, in terms of their counterdrug efforts," said Michael Vigil, a former senior DEA agent who has worked in Mexico and has been briefed on Guzman's arrest.
House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said Sunday that extraditing such a high profile suspect before he was tried in Mexico would be unusual, but such an exception might be warranted in this case.
"I think the concern is the fact that he's already broken out of prison once," McCaul, a Texas Republican, said on ABC's "This Week."
McCaul said he worried that corruption and Guzman's status as one of the most powerful and feared men in Mexico could lead to a short-lived prison stay.
"This is a great victory for both Mexico and the United States," McCaul said. "It signifies a new era in our cooperation. But I would argue the extradition would continue that cooperation."
Whatever the final decision, Vigil said it's not likely to be made quickly.
"It goes through a lot of legal reviews, and then obviously Chapo Guzman is going to have some of the best attorneys in Mexico and will try to impede the effort," Vigil said. "It's not going to be overnight."
Hunt for No 2 on
Mexican authorities are hunting for the number two leader of the country's most powerful drug cartel after capturing the gang's kingpin this weekend, an official said Sunday.
Mexican marines swooped on Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman -- who had been on the run for more than a decade -- in the Pacific beach resort town of Mazatlan on Saturday, giving the government a major victory in its struggle against drug violence.
Guzman's potential successor, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, is the next prime target of a vast operation against the cartel that has netted a dozen henchmen in recent weeks, the official in the attorney general's office told AFP.
"This process is continuing. One of the objectives now is 'El Mayo,'" the official said on condition of anonymity.
Mexican marines conducted massive searches in Sinaloa's capital Culiacan before tracking Guzman down further south in a condominium in Mazatlan.
Zambada could "definitely be in the area," the official said.
"The operations continue in Culiacan and Sinaloa," the official said, adding that actions could be taken after authorities interrogate Guzman and other detainees.
A US security official told AFP that Zambada had nearly been captured in the recent operations.
Guzman, who was taken to a maximum-security prison, was given a 20-year sentence in 1993 but broke out of jail in 2001.
He must now complete the remainder of his sentence, the official said, but he is also facing new charges of drug trafficking, using illegal funds, organized crime and possession of weapons reserved for the military.
The captured kingpin is not facing murder charges, even though the Sinaloa cartel's turf wars with rival gangs contributed to a wave of drug violence that left more than 77,000 people dead in the past seven years.
US lawmaker Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Guzman should be extradited to the United States to face justice there, warning that he may try to slip the net again.
Officials: Wiretaps, aides led to drug lord arrest
As Mexican troops forced their way into Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's main hideout in Culiacan, the country's most powerful drug lord sneaked out of the house through an escape tunnel beneath the bathtub.
Mexican marines working with U.S. authorities chased him but lost the man in a maze of tunnels under the city, a U.S. government official and a senior law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Sunday.
It would be a short-lived escape for Guzman, who was captured early Saturday hiding out in a condominium in Mazatlan, a beach resort town on Mexico's Pacific Coast.
He had a military-style assault rifle with him but didn't fire a shot, the officials said. His beauty queen wife, Emma Coronel, was with him when the manhunt for one of the world's most wanted drug traffickers ended.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss specific details of how U.S. authorities tracked down Guzman.
For 13 years Guzman watched from western Mexico's rugged mountains as authorities captured or killed the leaders of every group challenging his Sinaloa cartel's spot at the top of global drug trafficking.
Unscathed and his legend growing, the stocky son of a peasant farmer grabbed a slot on the Forbes' billionaires' list and a folkloric status as the capo who grew too powerful to catch. Then, late last year, authorities started closing in on the inner circle of the world's most-wanted drug lord. Bit by bit, they got closer to the crime boss.
Then on Feb. 16, investigators from Mexico along with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement caught the break they badly needed when they tracked a cellphone to one of the Culiacan stash houses Guzman used to elude capture.
The phone was connected to his communications chief, Carlos Manuel Ramirez, whose nickname is Condor. By the next day Mexican authorities arrested one of Guzman's top couriers, who promptly provided details of the stash houses Guzman and his associates had been using, the officials said.
At each house, the Mexican military found the same thing: steel reinforced doors and an escape hatch below the bathtubs. Each hatch led to a series of interconnected tunnels in the city's drainage system.
The officials said three tons of drugs, suspected to be cocaine and methamphetamine, were found at one of the stash houses.
A reporter who walked through one of the tunnels had to dismount into a canal and stoop to enter the drain pipe, which was filled with water and mud and smelled of sewage. About 700 meters (yards) in, a trap door was open, revealing a newly constructed tunnel. Large and lined with wood panels like a cabin, the passage had lighting and air conditioning. At the end of the tunnel was a blue ladder attached to the wall that led to one of the houses Mexican authorities say Guzman used as a hideout.
A day after troops narrowly missed Guzman in Culiacan, top aide Manuel Lopez Ozorio was arrested. The officials said he told investigators that he picked up Guzman, Ramirez and a woman from a drainage pipe and helped them flee to Mazatlan.
A wiretap being monitored by ICE agents in southern Arizona provided the final clue, helping track Guzman to the beachfront condo, the officials said.
The ICE wiretap proved the most crucial lead late last week as other wiretaps became useless as Guzman and his associates reacted to coming so close to being caught.
"It just all came together and we got the right people to flip and we were up on good wire," the government official said. "The ICE wire was the last one standing. That wire in Nogales. That got him (Guzman) inside that hotel."
Alonzo Pena, a former senior official at ICE, said wiretaps in Arizona led authorities to the Culiacan house of Guzman's ex-wife, Griselda Lopez, and to the Mazatlan hotel where Guzman was arrested.
The ICE investigation started about a year ago with a tip from the agency's Atlanta office that someone was crossing the border with about $100,000 at a time, said Pena, who was briefed on the investigation. That person led investigators to another cartel operative, believed to be an aircraft broker, and that allowed them to locate Guzman's communications equipment.
The senior law enforcement official said the Mexican marines deserve credit for taking Guzman alive and without either side firing a shot.
"We never anticipated, ever, that he would be taken alive," the official said.
