[What you need to know to start the day: Get New York Today in your inbox.] The 10 weeks of testimony at the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo, have revealed that his innovative smuggling network typically went through legal checkpoints — not isolated stretches of the border where a wall might be an obstacle. President Trump’s plan to build a wall along the southwestern border has not been mentioned at the trial, but it has lurked in the background of Mr. Guzmán’s prosecution, a watershed moment in America’s war on drugs. The trial, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, is the first time that American federal prosecutors have publicly revealed the inner workings of Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa drug cartel, offering the most extensive details yet on the organization’s structure, financing and distribution methods. In doing so, prosecutors have relied on firsthand experts: a long list of Mr. Guzmán’s own former underlings and allies.

Source: New York Times January 22, 2019 08:00 UTC