Penn says he has nothing to do with 'El Chapo' Guzman's recapture
American actor Sean Penn says that his article for Rolling Stone, in which he secretly interviewed then fugitive drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, "failed."
"My article has failed. Let me be clear, my article has failed," he told Charlie Rose in his first interview about the now notorious meeting on this Sunday's "CBS This Morning."
But Penn insists that his visit, despite what the Mexican government is claiming, had absolutely nothing to do with the drug lord's recapture.
"There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with 'El Chapo,' that it was - as the attorney general of Mexico is quoted - 'essential' to his capture," Penn told Rose. "We had met with him [Guzmán] many weeks earlier ... on October 2, in a place nowhere near where he was captured."
Penn said:
Here's the things that we know: We know that the Mexican government ... they were clearly very humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did. Well, nobody found him before they did. We didn't - we're not smarter than the DEA or the Mexican intelligence. We had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation.
Penn was able to secure the interview with the Sinaloa cartel chief on October 2, 2015, through the facilitation of Mexican actress Kate del Castillo. The actress and Guzmán had been in touch since as early as 2012.
Penn told Rose that he believed that the Mexican government was attempting to blame him for the recapture of the drug lord in order to put him in the cartels' crosshairs. But Penn said that he was not afraid.
"El Chapo" was captured in the Mexican city of Los Mochis on January 8 following a shootout with Mexican marines, US Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and US Marshals.