Guzmán was found guilty Tuesday of all the charges against him, in a trial that offered rare insight into the internal workings of the most powerful cartel in the country. He faces a life sentence.

AD

AD

The verdict quickly topped headlines and became a trending topic in Mexico on Tuesday.

“The destiny of the person known as the most powerful capo in the world has concluded,” wrote La Jornada newspaper.

Prominent Mexican journalist León Krauze tweeted, “Joaquín Guzmán will spend the rest of his life in prison, undoubtedly in a place where escaping or suicide is practically impossible.”

But even before the jury delivered its verdict, those affected by the cartel watched the revelations in horror. In Guzmán’s former home state of Sinaloa, Mirna Medina read details that would haunt her: the testimony that he buried his victims alive.

For Medina, it was personal. In 2014, she launched a frantic search for her son after he went missing, finally encountering his remains in a clandestine grave.

AD

Other mothers whose sons disappeared couldn’t even bear to watch. Stories of torture and violence fill the newspapers but for Medina, Guzmán is a painful, national symbol of the suffering that thousands suffered at the hands of organized crime. And for her, the excruciating details of the trial culminated in the testimony of one trial witness.

AD

On Jan. 24, Isaías Valdez Ríos testified that Guzmán shot one of his blindfolded victims in the head. “We put him in a hole and buried him,” Valdéz Ríos said. The victim was “still gasping for air,” he said.

“It’s deeply painful to hear those testimonies,” Medina said, adding that Guzmán facing justice in the United States is no consolation. “Nothing will compensate for it, and nothing will return the lives of so many people who died because of him.”

AD

Mexican journalist Anabel Hernández watched as much of the reporting she had done over the past decade was born out in witness testimony in the trial. In her book “Narcoland,” she outlined Sinaloa cartel bribes to government officials, including former presidents. And her reporting of these topics came at a price.

Hernández received multiple death threats against her and her family after the publication of the book. She sees the testimony that emerged at the trial as a vindication of her work.

AD

Even the most striking allegation did not come as a surprise to her.

The testimony that Guzmán’s cartel paid $100 million to former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto for the ability to do business without government interference made international headlines. The witness provided no proof of the payment, which Peña Nieto denied. Others testified about paying off security ministers, military officers and other top officials.

AD

“The authorities are obligated to investigate these claims,” Hernández said, adding that the new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “has not publicly announced what he is going to do with these reports.”

To others in Mexico, the trial hardly registered, including for Mexico City newspaper vendor Juan Francisco Perez. He said there are more important issues, such as the impact of a recent gasoline shortage and the crisis in Venezuela. “People are more interested in what the president will do than with El Chapo,” he said.

AD

The trial is a painful reminder of the human toll left by the drug war. Since Guzmán’s capture in 2015, the murder rate in Mexico has climbed, with 2018 registering the country’s highest number of homicides in the past 20 years. The border city of Ciudad Juarez, for example, saw homicides triple since 2014. And in Tijuana, murder rates have skyrocketed in recent months. The number of disappeared passed 40,000 in January, according to government figures.

AD