How Boots the Monkey Almost Put El Chapo in Prison Again
No, seriously.
Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is many things: a most-wanted fugitive, the head of an international crime syndicate, a Halloween costume model, and apparently a friend to monkeys. One monkey, anyway—his twin four-year-old daughters’ beloved Boots. El Chapo’s effort to reunite his kids with Boots recently put him within arms’ reach of Mexican authorities.
The Guardian reported that after El Chapo’s bravura exit from a supposedly high-security prison in July, he made it a point to try and get the monkey back. Even though Guzman has, in the words of the Guardian report, “made a living out of drugs, murder and masterminding a terrifying criminal cartel,” he actually took care to follow proper channels to bring Boots home—and that was, for a man who clearly doesn’t want to stay in jail, a bad idea:
A permit was requested to enable Boots to fly and the application for the correct documents put the security services back on the drug baron’s trail, with the police discovering that the monkey was being carried in a Ford Mustang belonging to his brother in law.
Police managed to use the info on the traveling simian to lock in El Chapo’s location using cell phone signals. They closed in. That was when El Chapo got away again, injuring himself in a fall as he did so.
El Chapo remains a wanted man, but in this instance dads everywhere can probably understand his motivations, because anyone who ever dealt with upset four-year-olds totally gets that you will do anything just to calm them down again—even put yourself at the mercy of a small army of state and local police.
Photos by Eduardo Verdugo / AP
Read This Next
