MEXICO CITY—Mexican Navy marines captured Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, the world's most powerful drug lord, in a predawn raid Saturday on a modest condominium in the western resort of Mazatlan, officials said. 
 
 The capture likely ends the legendary career of the farmer who rose from poverty in the mountains of the state of Sinaloa and built an empire of cocaine and marijuana that made him a billionaire and caused much of the... 

 MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican authorities at a hotel in Mazatlan, Mexico, the Associated Press has learned. 
 
 FILE - In this June 10, 1993 file photo, Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias "El Chapo" Guzman, is shown to the media after his arrest at the high security prison of Almoloya de Juarez, on the outskirts of Mexico... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This Feb. 14, 2013 file photo, shows a poster displayed at a Chicago Crime Commission news conference in Chicago, where Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman, a drug kingpin in Mexico, was named as Chicago's... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In a Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013, file photo, a poster displayed at a Chicago Crime Commission news conference in Chicago, shows Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman, who was deemed Chicago's Public Enemy No.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2013 file photo, Art Bilek, executive vice president of the Chicago Crime Commission, left, announces that Joaquin ``El Chapo'' Guzman has been named Chicago's Public Enemy No.... (Associated Press) 
 
 A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was taken alive overnight in the beach resort town. The official was not authorized to discuss the arrest and spoke on condition of anonymity. 
 
 Guzman, 56, faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. and is on the Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted list. His drug empire stretches throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. His cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last several years. 
 
 Known as a legendary outlaw, Mexico's Osama bin Laden and the world's most powerful and elusive drug lord, Guzman had been pursued for weeks, the official said. 
 
 Guzman's capture ended a long and storied manhunt. He was rumored to live everywhere from Argentina to Guatemala since he slipped out in 2001 from prison in a laundry truck — a storied feat that fed his larger-than-life persona. Because insiders aided his escape, rumors circulated for years that he was helped and protected by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon's government, which vanquished some of his top rivals. 
 
 In more than a decade on the run, Guzman transformed himself from a middling Mexican capo into arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. His fortune has grown to more than $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which listed him among the "World's Most Powerful People" and ranked him above the presidents of France and Venezuela. 
 
 His Sinaloa Cartel grew bloodier and more powerful, taking over much of the lucrative trafficking routes along the U.S. border, including such prized cities as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Guzman's play for power against local cartels caused a bloodbath in Tijuana and made Juarez one of the deadliest cities in the world. In little more than a year, Mexico's biggest marijuana bust, 134 tons, and its biggest cultivation were tied to Sinaloa, as were a giant underground methamphetamine lab in western Mexico and hundreds of tons of precursor chemicals seized in Mexico and Guatemala. 
 
 His cartel's tentacles now extend as far as Australia thanks to a sophisticated, international distribution system for cocaine and methamphetamines. 
 
 Guzman did all that with a $7 million bounty on his head and while evading thousands of law enforcement agents from the U.S. and other countries devoted to his capture. A U.S. federal indictment unsealed in San Diego in 1995 charges Guzman and 22 members of his organization with conspiracy to import over eight tons of cocaine and money laundering. A provisional arrest warrant was issued as a result of the indictment, according to the state department. 
 
 Guzman is still celebrated in folk songs and is said to have enjoyed deep protection from humble villagers in the rugged hills of Sinaloa and Durango where he has hidden from authorities. He is also thought to have contacts inside law enforcement that helped him evade capture, including a near-miss in February 2012 in the southern Baja California resort of Cabo San Lucas just after an international meeting of foreign ministers. He was vacationing in Cabo during a visit by then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. 
 
 "There's no drug-trafficking organization in Mexico with the scope, the savvy, the operational ability, expertise and knowledge as the Sinaloa cartel," said one former U.S. law enforcement official, who couldn't be quoted by name for security reasons. "You've kind of lined yourself up the New York Yankees of the drug trafficking world." 
 
 More than 70,000 people have been killed in drug violence since former President Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers to drug hotspots upon taking office on Dec. 1, 2006. Many say his government's assault on drug cartels and arrest of kingpins actually fueled the growth of Sinaloa and its major rival, the Zetas, which are now going head-to-heard for lucrative territory. 
 
 The two are battling for Nuevo Laredo, a play Guzman lost to the Zetas in 2005, and hitting each other deep inside their respective territories. Sinaloa took over a key Zeta port in Veracruz, while bands of Zetas have attacked their rival deep inside the cartel's home, western Sinaloa and Jalisco states. 
 
 The conflict has led to the gruesome dumping of dozens of bodies by both organizations in their battlegrounds. 
 
 Authorities said the battle also weakened the Sinaloa cartel and that key hits on the top leadership in Guzman's organization had shaken up his inner circle. In the first months of 2012, the Mexican army and federal police arrested a half dozen key Sinaloa people, including two major cocaine suppliers and a man described as the head of Guzman's security detail. 
 
 In April last year, a video made the rounds on the Internet of a man whom U.S. authorities believed was Guzman, possibly indicating a security breach in his inner circle. In 2012, Colombian police seized 116 properties worth $15 million that they say were bought for Guzman, while the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was placing financial sanctions on a wife and several of his sons. 
 
 While his capture may have symbolic importance, many, including Guzman's cartel partner, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, say it won't stop the violence or flow of drugs through Mexico to the United States. 
 
 "When it comes to the capos, jailed, dead or extradited — their replacements are ready," Zambada said in an exclusive interview published in Proceso magazine in April 2010. 
 
 Guzman's success and infamy surpassed Colombia's Pablo Escobar, who was gunned down by police in 1993 after waging a decade-long reign of terror in the South American country, killing hundreds of police, judges, journalists and politicians. 
 
 Growing up poor, Guzman was drawn to the money being made by the flow of illegal drugs through his home state of Sinaloa. 
 
 He joined the Guadalajara cartel, run by Mexican Godfather Miguel Angel Gallardo, and rose quickly through the ranks as a ruthless businessman and skilled networker, making key contacts with politicians and police to ensure his loads made it through without problems. 
 
 After Gallardo was arrested in 1989, the gang split, and Guzman took control of Sinaloa's operations. 
 
 The Sinaloa cartel violently seized lucrative drug routes from rivals and built sophisticated tunnels under the U.S. border to move its loads. 
 
 In 1993, gunmen linked to the Tijuana-based Arrellano Felix cartel attempted to assassinate Guzman at the Guadalajara airport but instead killed Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, outraging Mexicans. 
 
 Police arrested Guzman weeks later before his escape from El Puente Grande prison in 2001. At the time of his escape, Guzman had been serving a 20-year sentence for bribery and criminal association in a maximum-security prison in Mexico. 
 
 He was rumored to have once entered a restaurant in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, where his henchmen confiscated every patron's cellphone so their boss could eat without fear of an ambush. He was also rumored to have staged an elaborate public wedding in 2007 to an 18-year-old bride that was attended by officials and local police. 
 
 Federal police say they raided the town that day, but got there just a few hours too late. 
 
 Guzman had long been reported to move around frequently, using private aircraft, bulletproof SUVs and even all-terrain vehicles. 
 
 His location was part of Mexican folklore, with rumors circulating of him being everywhere from Guatemala to almost every corner of Mexico, especially its "Golden Triangle," a mountainous, marijuana-growing region straddling the northern states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua. 
 
 An archbishop in northern Durango state said in April 2009 that Guzman lived in a town nearby. Days later, investigators found the bodies of two slain army lieutenants with a note: "Neither the government nor priests can handle El Chapo." 

 The world's most notorious and powerful drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, has reportedly been captured in Mexico. 
 
 According to the Associated Press, Chapo or "Shorty," the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, was captured last night at a hotel in the resort town of Mazatlan. The operation to grab the kingpin was a joint operation between U.S. and Mexican authorities. According to reports, Guzman was attending a party when he was apprehended, and there were no shots fired during the operation. A picture of a shirtless, mustachioed man, his hands behind his back, has been circulating today that bears resemblance to the well known pictures of a younger Guzman. 
 
 There was a $5 million bounty on Guzman's head. 
 
 Guzman, 56, has escaped from custody before, getting rolled out of prison in a laundry cart in 2001, reportedly with the help of guards. If the authorities manage to hold on to him this time, it could spell the end of the most powerful drug runner in history. 
 
 Forbes ranked Guzman 67 out of 72 on our most recent list of the World's Most Powerful People. His Sinaloa cartel is easily the most powerful in Mexico, responsible for an estimated 25% of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S. via Mexico. Drug enforcement experts estimate, conservatively, that the cartel's annual revenues may exceed $3 billion. 
 
 In 2011, Forbes writer Nathan Vardi reported on how the kingpin had surpassed Pablo Escobar to become the biggest ever. “Chapo has a vast criminal enterprise and he has become the leading drug trafficker of all time,” a senior U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official told Forbes. “He is the godfather of the drug world. 
 
 Last February the city of Chicago branded him the first "Public Enemy No. 1" since Al Capone. Last year Forbes also removed Guzman from our annual list of the World's Billionaires. Although it is highly likely that Guzman and his family have socked away at least a billion in narco-profits over the years, proving it is simply impossible. He first appeared on the billionaires list in 2009. Also in 2013, Guzman was falsely declared dead, rumored to have suffered a heart attack while in hiding in Honduras. 
 
 Presaging his capture, Forbes contributor Dolia Estevez wrote this piece in January, making the case for why 2014 was shaping up to be the year of Guzman's demise. Conspiracy buffs surmise that the authorities have always known where Chapo was, and that the only reason for his ultimate apprehension is because his usefulness had run its course. Last month Mexico's El Universal newspaper revealed that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had allowed Guzman's cartel to operate unimpeded from 2000 to 2012 in exchange for information on competing cartels. 
 
 Will another stint in prison really bring the end of El Chapo? It didn't before. During his previous eight years in the clink Guzman continued to manage his cartel via cell phone, while enjoying access to booze, women and a home entertainment system. It was in January 2001, when facing extradition to the U.S., that he slipped into a laundry cart and was rolled out to freedom. 
 
 Some biographical info from Forbes' 2009 profile of Guzman: 
 
 Guzmán grew up in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa in a rural region that has produced big drug traffickers. The farm boy was likely exposed to the trade at a young age. Officials say he honed his drug-running skills working for different gangs, most notably as an airplane logistics expert for Miguel Angel Félix Gallardo, “El Padrino,” or the Godfather, the country’s leading trafficker at the time. Gallardo was arrested in 1989. By the early 1990s Guzmán had started his own international firm. Business didn’t always run smoothly. In 1993, at the northern border, Mexican authorities seized a 7-ton shipment of cocaine, believed to be his, that was hidden in chili pepper cans. The same year rival gang members, apparently trying to kill Guzmán at the Guadalajara airport, bumped off a Catholic cardinal instead. Also that year he was captured and convicted for homicide and drug trafficking. A 1995 U.S. indictment alleges he directed a vast network of employees and assets, including warehouses in California, New Jersey and Chicago; a tunnel, running 65 feet deep and 1,416 feet long, between Mexico and Otay Mesa, Calif.; an executive jet rental business; and railcars carrying cooking oil. At least one of his employees was in charge of paying off Mexican prosecutors and police, allegedly dropping $1 million in cash in 1991 for the release of Guzmán’s brother, “El Pollo,” from a Mexico City prison. (El Pollo was murdered in 2004.) 
 
 Since his escape in 2001 Guzman consolidated his power and continued to operate brazenly, even digging massive tunnels under the U.S. border to move cocaine. In 2011 he even sent his beauty queen wife Emma Coronel (an American citizen) to a hospital north of Los Angeles to deliver twin girls. U.S. law enforcement could only watch as she returned to Mexico with her babies. (You can expect that episode to be dramatized in a new TV series based on Guzman's exploits.) 
 
 Mexico's drug war has claimed more than 70,000 lives in recent years. We can only hope that the capture of Guzman helps bring it to an end rather than ignite a battle among the second tier of bosses over who gets to step into los zapatos de Chapo's. 

 Story highlights Official describes network of tunnels allegedly used by Guzman 
 
 Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is longtime boss of powerful drug trafficking operations 
 
 Guzman has been included in Forbes' World's Most Powerful People list 
 
 DEA veteran: "It is a significant arrest provided he gets extradited immediately" 
 
 After eluding capture for more than a dozen years, the legendary boss of one of the world's most powerful and deadly drug trafficking operations was nabbed in a surprise raid on a seaside hotel-condominium tower in a bustling Mexican beach resort, authorities said. 
 
 Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who infamously escaped in 2001 from a high-security prison in a laundry cart, was arrested early Saturday in Mazatlan without a single shot being fired, authorities said. 
 
 A U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that Guzman, accompanied by a female, was captured in a joint operation of Mexican marines and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents that was in the works for four or five weeks. 
 
 The pressure on Guzman's organization, the Sinaloa cartel, had been mounting for months, with Mexican authorities killing or capturing several of its most brutal lieutenants, a U.S. law enforcement official said. 
 
 Those operations yielded information, including cell phone and other data, that helped Mexican authorities and U.S. drug enforcement agents track Guzman down. 
 
 At a Mexico City news conference, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said authorities came close to capturing Guzman, believed to be in his mid-50s, earlier this month. 
 
 Guzman apparently moved around several homes in Culiacan, Sinaloa, connected by an elaborate network of tunnels also linked to the city's sewer system, Murillo Karam said. The entrances to the seven homes were reinforced with steel, he said, which enabled Guzman to escape via tunnel before marines could break down the doors. 
 
 On other occasions, authorities decided against attempting to apprehend Guzman in public places. 
 
 Murillo Karam said forensic experts had "100%" confirmation of Guzman's identity. Authorities also seized a weapons cache that included 97 large guns, 36 handguns, two grenade launchers and a rocket launcher. 
 
 Mexican government footage showed a handcuffed Guzman, with a dark mustache, being escorted by masked marines in Mexico City. 
 
 A U.S. Homeland Security official said key intelligence in the capture came from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation. 
 
 John Torres, a former ranking ICE official, told CNN that information leading to Guzman's capture actually started to develop about five years ago after the Arizona arrests of several people connected to the drug cartel. ICE and Homeland Security were the lead agencies in that investigation. 
 
 Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, via Twitter, recognized the work of Mexican security forces in the historic arrest. 
 
 Phil Jordan, who spent three decades with the DEA and headed the agency's El Paso Intelligence Center, said the arrest represents a huge blow to the Sinaloa cartel. 
 
 "It is a significant arrest, provided he gets extradited immediately to the United States," Jordan told CNN. "If he does not get extradited, then he will be allowed to escape within a period of time. 
 
 Photos: Photos: Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' arrested – Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by Mexican marines as he is presented to the press on February 22, in Mexico City. Hide Caption 1 of 5 Photos: Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' arrested – Marines stand guard as Guzman is presented to the press. Hide Caption 2 of 5 Photos: Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' arrested – Guzman was arrested early this morning by Mexican marines at a resort in Mazatlan, northern Mexico. Hide Caption 3 of 5 Photos: Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' arrested – The operation was heavily guarded. Hide Caption 4 of 5 Photos: Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' arrested – Guzman was marched toward a waiting helicopter for transport to jail. Hide Caption 5 of 5 
 
 JUST WATCHED Drug lord 'like God in Mexico' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Drug lord 'like God in Mexico' 01:17 
 
 JUST WATCHED 2011: Aide to top drug lord arrested Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 2011: Aide to top drug lord arrested 01:35 
 
 JUST WATCHED Drug lord 'like God in Mexico' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Drug lord 'like God in Mexico' 01:12 
 
 "When you arrest the most powerful man in the Americas and in Mexico, if you talk to any cartel member, they'll say that he's more powerful than Mexican President Peña Nieto. This would be a significant blow to the overall operations not only in the Americas, but Chapo Guzman had expanded to Europe. He was all over the place. If he is, in fact, incarcerated, until he gets extradited to the United States, it will be business as usual." 
 
 In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrest "a landmark achievement, and a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States." 
 
 "Guzman was one of the world's most wanted men and the alleged head of a drug-running empire that spans continents," Holder said in a statement. "The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence, and corruption." 
 
 A senior administration official described the arrest as "huge" and said it was "a Mexican-led operation, but one with very strong U.S. government support." 
 
 "This has been a long time coming, and hopefully puts a rest to the nonsense that this Mexican government isn't focusing on security and that the U.S. and Mexico aren't working well together," the official told CNN. "They are, and we do." 
 
 In Chicago, where the city's crime commission last year named Guzman its Public Enemy No. 1 -- a designation originally crafted for Al Capone -- authorities praised the arrest. Chicago is among the major destinations of the cartel's drug flow. 
 
 "The arrest of Chapo Guzman is significant," police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said in a statement. "This is a victory, but we know the tentacles of his cartel still exist and much more work remains to be done. Demand for narcotics will still remain, so we will continue to partner with the DEA as they fight international drug trade, and we will remain focused on our efforts to eliminate the factors that drive violence in our city." 
 
 From New York to Chicago, Texas to San Diego, Guzman and his lieutenants are named in indictments for marijuana, cocaine and heroin trafficking, as well as racketeering, money laundering, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. 
 
 In Mexico, the diminutive Guzman became a larger-than-life figure as he eluded authorities while expanding a drug empire that spanned the world. His life story became the topic of best-selling books and the subject of adoring songs known as narcocorridos. 
 
 In the United States, he is wanted on multiple federal drug trafficking and organized crime charges. 
 
 His nickname, which means "Shorty," matches his 5-foot-6-inch frame. 
 
 Guzman escaped from a high-security Mexican prison in 2001, reportedly hiding in a laundry basket. Throughout the years, he avoided being caught because of his enormous power to bribe corrupt local, state and federal Mexican officials. 
 
 "When you arrest Chapo Guzman you're arresting the leader of all the cartels," Jordan said. "This guy had a hand in everything, and he owned every politician." 
 
 Guzman has been included in Forbes' World's Most Powerful People list since 2009. Forbes estimated his fortune at more than $1 billion. 
 
 Guzman is wanted on numerous drug trafficking and organized crime charges in Mexico and the United States, which had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and had sought his extradition in the past. His drug enterprise stretches throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia. 
 
 The Sinaloa cartel has been blamed for its role in the bloody drug war that has plagued Mexico in recent years, leaving tens of thousands of people dead. 
 
 Guzman was born in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, at a time when the drug trade was evolving, and began his career in the drug trade working for powerful drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, according to a biography by Time. He founded his own cartel in 1980, and quickly established outposts in a number of states, eventually inheriting some of his mentor's territory, according to Time. 
 
 Guzman's arrest caught Jordan and other observers by surprise. 
 
 "There is no way that I would have bet that they would have ever arrested him under this administration unless he double-crossed somebody or didn't make the full payments on bribes," Jordan said, citing Guzman's alleged ties to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. "Something went wrong."
– A joint US-Mexican force captured the world's most powerful drug lord without firing a shot, reports the Wall Street Journal. Authorities arrested Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman at a hotel in Mazatlan overnight, reports AP. Guzman runs Mexico's notorious Sinaloa Cartel. The 56-year-old has been captured before, but he's been on the run since escaping from a maximum-security prison in 2001 in a laundry truck. Forbes has pegged his net worth at more than $1 billion and even put him on its "World's Most Powerful People" list. Few details about the arrest were immediately available, though CNN says it was the result of a weeks-long operation and that Guzman was with a female companion at the time. Last year, the Chicago Crime Commission officially labeled Guzman "Public Enemy No. 1," a moniker that hadn't been used since the Al Capone era, because his cartel supplies most of the city's drugs. Sinaloa's reach is thought to extend all the way to Australia, specializing in cocaine and meth. As for the nickname: It means "shorty." Guzman is 5-6.