Photos show Penn monitored before Chapo meet: Report

MEXICO CITY — A Mexican newspaper published yesterday (Jan 11) surveillance photographs that apparently show that American actor Sean Penn was monitored by authorities before his meeting with drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

The pictures are part of a Mexican intelligence report that the newspaper, El Universal, obtained after the bombshell revelation over the weekend that Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo met the then-fugitive in October last year.

One photo, apparently taken from a distance, shows a man resembling Penn and a woman, identified as Del Castillo, arriving at the airport in the western city of Guadalajara on Oct 2 last year.

Another picture shows the pair greeting a man before taking a car that took them to an airstrip in the neighbouring state of Nayarit, the newspaper said.

One of the two small planes they boarded is pictured, apparently heading toward Guzman’s hideout in north-western Mexico.

Officials at the attorney-general’s office were not immediately available for comment on the article.

Penn wrote in a Rolling Stone article published on Saturday that he had received a “credible tip” that the United States (US) Drug Enforcement Administration “had indeed become aware of our journey to Mexico”.

The US rock magazine posted an Oct 2, 2015 picture showing Penn shaking Guzman’s hand.

A Mexican federal official told AFP on Sunday that the attorney-general’s office wants to question Penn and Del Castillo about their meeting with Guzman.

Authorities say Penn’s meeting with Guzman helped them track down the Sinaloa drug cartel chief, who was nearly captured in a military raid in the state of Durango on Oct 6 last year, four days after he saw the actors.

Guzman was finally captured last Friday in a military raid in Los Mochis, a coastal city in the north-western state of Sinaloa, six months after his prison break. AFP