New York Times […] MEXICO CITY — The world’s most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, has been captured, a senior American law enforcement official said Saturday, ending a 13-year manhunt for the chief supplier of illegal drugs to the United States and much of the world.

[…]  Mexican marines captured him in the Pacific beach resort area of Mazatlan. There were no reports of shots fired. In the past year, several of his top associates had been detained and crime analysts who follow the drug world had speculated his days were increasingly numbered.

Mr. Guzmán took on near-mythic status, landing on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people and talked about his legendary exploits. He picked up the tab for entire restaurants, or so the stories go, so diners would remain silent about his outings and, according to a leaked diplomatic cable, he surrounded himself with an entourage of 300 armed men for protection. Narcocorridos, folk ballads in tribute to drug lords, were sung in his honor.

It seemed as if he was always tipped off or managed to slither away just as Mexican forces, often relying on American intelligence, closed in several times in the past few years.

In 2012, it appeared he was hiding in a mansion in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, around the time then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with foreign ministers in the same town. A raid the next day failed to capture him.

While Mr. Guzmán is the most prominent drug lord to fall, the practical effect of his end remained unclear. He was considered the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, the largest and most powerful cartel with tentacles on every continent. Security analysts, however, have long suspected that, as Mexican and American authorities ratcheted up their pursuit, much of the day-to-day management fell to subordinates who remain at large.

Another powerful group, the Zetas, has emerged with brutal violence to battle Mr. Guzmán’s organization, raising questions about whether the focus on dismantling that group gave Mr. Guzmán something of a free pass.  (read more)