MEXICO CITY — Just before 7 a.m. on Saturday, dozens of soldiers and police officers descended on a condominium tower in Mazatlán, Mexico, a beach resort known as much as a hangout for drug traffickers as for its seafood and surf.

The forces were following yet another tip about the whereabouts of one of the world’s most wanted drug kingpins, Joaquín Guzmán Loera — known as El Chapo, which means “Shorty” — who had eluded such raids for 13 years since escaping from prison, by many accounts in a laundry cart. With an army of guards and lethally enforced loyalty, he reigned over a worldwide, multibillion-dollar drug empire that supplied much of the cocaine and marijuana to the United States despite a widespread, yearslong manhunt by American and Mexican forces.

This time, however, Mr. Guzmán, believed to be in his mid-50s, did not slip out a door, disappear into the famed mountains around his northwest Mexico home, or prove to be absent, as he had in so many previous attempts to apprehend him. He apparently had no time to reach for the arsenal of guns and grenades he had amassed or dash into a storm drain or tunnel, as authorities said he recently did minutes ahead of pursuers.

Mexican marines and the police, aided by information from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, immigration and customs officials and the United States Marshals Service, took him into custody without firing a shot, according to Mexican officials.