Mexican Drug Lord’s Quest for Movie Fame Helped Lead to Capture, Official Says

As the most notorious drug trafficker Mexico has ever produced, Joaquín Guzmán Loera knew he had a story worthy of Hollywood gold. And that, in part, led to his undoing.
The uneducated son of a farmer who became a cartel kingpin, married a beauty queen wife and made two Houdini-like escapes from prison, Mr. Guzmán, known as El Chapo, wanted to make his own biopic. After his escape from a maximum-security prison six months ago, he instructed his people to get in touch with actresses and producers. But his rags-to-riches film ambitions quickly turned into a flop. The government used the contacts between his people and those in the film industry to open a new line of investigation, according to Arely Gómez González, Mexico’s attorney general, who gave a lengthy statement on the arrest late Friday night. Early Saturday, reporters swarmed the coastal city of Los Mochis where Mr. Guzmán was apprehended. The local authorities promised to share more details later.