After making such a daring tunnel escape from a prison cell back in July, it would be kind of funny if the thing that led to the recapture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was a monkey.
We'd heard the Mexican drug lord was nearly captured about a week ago when authorities closed in on him in a remote mountain region of his home state of Sinaloa, and that El Chapo sustained injury to his face and leg as he narrowly got away.
What we didn't know until now was how the police had found that mountain hideout. The Telegraph is now reporting that it was by tracking a pet monkey that belonged to El Chapo's 4-year-old daughters.
The daughters had reportedly been forced to leave behind their pet monkey, Boots, when El Chapo broke out of prison and his family left the home where they had been living to reunite with him in Sinaloa. But those daughters, who were understandably upset because having a pet monkey sounds awesome, wanted their monkey back.
Here's where someone screwed up. El Chapo sent people to retrieve Boots, but for some reason they filed the proper legal documents to get a permit allowing the monkey to be taken on an airplane -- strangely by the book behavior for a international drug cartel. It was through these documents that police figured out that the monkey was traveling in El Chapo's brother-in-law's Ford Mustang.
Police tracked that car, and closed in on El Chapo, yet again, but weren't able to capture him. We're still not sure if Boots the monkey escaped or was arrested during the raid.
Among those who were arrested this past week: 23 prison officials, the "alleged mastermind" behind the July prison escape and El Chapo’s brother-in-law, suspected of assisting in the construction of the escape tunnel and organizing transportation.
