He was for a time seen as the right-hand man of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, once the world’s most notorious drug kingpin, now jailed in the United States. Mexican authorities said officers arrested Lopez — who is also wanted on drug charges in the United States — at his 11th-floor suite in a swank apartment complex near downtown Mexico City. A photo distributed by authorities showed Lopez, unshaven and in a white T-shirt, sitting on a couch flanked by lawmen. In 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department named Lopez a “drug kingpin” and called him a “top lieutenant” of Guzman, then chief of the Sinaloa cartel. Lopez was accused of money laundering and smuggling cocaine to the United States since at least 2007 from Mexico, Peru, Panama and elsewhere.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 02, 2017 17:37 UTC