More informationĭrones, explosives, impunity: A Mexican drug cartel flexes its muscle in Michoacán The evidence available failed to link Del Castillo with the Sinaloa cartel or to prove that El Chapo’s money was behind a tequila she promoted, but the process gave rise to a soap opera of leaked messages, accusations, lawsuits and a bizarre meeting between one of the most powerful drug lords in the world, renowned US actor Sean Penn, Del Castillo and two Hollywood producers. From that day on, the actress officially became a target of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and she remained on their radar long after the drug lord was recaptured several months later, in January 2016.Ī review of the investigation the authorities opened against Kate del Castillo at the end of 2015, to which EL PAÍS has had access, leaves question marks over the motives or the clues that drove the investigation in the aftermath of El Chapo’s fall: for 17 months, the PGR deployed wiretaps, detectives, tax audits, witness statements and the cooperation of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to see if it was possible to charge Del Castillo with crimes including organized crime and concealment on the basis of her exchanges and her meeting with El Chapo. “You only need to follow her or tap her phones to verify what I am telling you.” More than a tip, the message was almost an instruction. “On September 25, 2015, she will meet him in the village of La Tuna, in Badiraguato, Sinaloa,” the transcription reads.
Kate del castillo movie#
It all started, according to court records, with an anonymous email received on September 24, 2015, almost three months after Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s remarkable escape from the maximum-security El Altiplano penitentiary: the message alerted the authorities that Mexican actress Kate del Castillo was planning on meeting the head of the Sinaloa cartel because she wanted to make a movie about his life.