Public Enemy? At Home in Mexico, ‘El Chapo’ Is Folk Hero No. 1

When José Antonio Sevilla and his three brothers learned that the notorious drug trafficker known as El Chapo had escaped from prison, they jumped out of their chairs and shouted with glee.

“El Chapo got out! He’s the greatest of them all,” said Mr. Sevilla, 19, a self-professed fan of the drug kingpin, whose full name is Joaquín Guzmán Loera. “He was famous before, but now he’s even more famous.”

Mr. Sevilla, an auto mechanic, was so excited that he attended a march through the streets of Culiacán, the capital of Mr. Guzmán’s home state, this week to celebrate. He carried a sign that a woman gave him, which read, “El Chapo is more of a president than Peña Nieto,” a reference to Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Here in Sinaloa State, where Mr. Guzmán was born, and even in other parts of Mexico, the drug trafficker’s stunning escape through a hidden tunnel under what was supposed to be the country’s most secure prison has enhanced his status as an outlaw folk hero.

There are few illusions about the damage Mr. Guzmán has done. American officials accuse him of contributing to “the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence and corruption.”

Yet for many Mexicans, he is an unusual combination of Robin Hood and billionaire, a source of mirth, grudging respect and even outright reverence because of his repeated ability to outfox the country’s deeply unpopular government.

He fought the law, and he won. He beat what many Mexicans see as a corrupt and feckless governing class. And Mexico, just like America, loves an outlaw.

“Why do people admire him?” said Adrián Cabrera, a blogger in Culiacán wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of El Chapo. “Because he’s a living legend. He’s like Al Capone. He’s like Lucky Luciano. Like Tony Soprano. Like Scarface. He’s like a character on a television show, except that he’s alive, he’s real.”

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Over the years, Mr. Guzmán rose through the ranks of Mexican drug gangs until he came to head the largest of them all, the Sinaloa cartel, named for the state where he continued to spend a good deal of time even as a wanted man. When he was arrested last year, the authorities found him at the Sinaloan beach resort of Mazatlán.

Mr. Guzmán operates a vast international organization. Forbes magazine has included him in its list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion.

He escaped from prison once before, by some accounts hiding in a laundry cart, and his most recent breakout was highly elaborate: He passed through a sophisticated tunnel about a mile long, one equipped with lights, ventilation and even a motorcycle on rails to excavate the dirt.

“It took a lot of intelligence to do that,” said Erica Lara, who sells shaved ice in the plaza of Badiraguato. “There are powerful people who have to serve their entire sentences. But he escaped two times.”

Many here said that Mr. Guzmán helped residents, often in small ways. A family with a sick member might receive a visitor delivering money for treatment, they said, although none could point to a specific example.

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While buying a shaved ice in the Badiraguato plaza, Amairany Avilez, 20, called Mr. Guzmán “my hero.”

She said that the economy in the region depended on Mr. Guzmán, and that people might now get work on land he owns or could grow more marijuana to sell to his organization. “When they arrested him, people around here had to go back to growing corn,” Ms. Avilez said. “Now the corn will turn into marijuana.”

Experts say that drug production does not depend much on whether a single trafficker, no matter how influential, is in or out of jail.

Beyond that, Sinaloa last year ranked second in the government’s measure of intentional homicides per capita, at a level more than two and a half times the national average. Yet many people here said that their state was relatively calm thanks to Mr. Guzmán’s influence.

Scarlett López, 22, who works at a finance company in Culiacán, said that while she disapproved of Mr. Guzmán’s drug trafficking, she was glad he was out of prison because it meant that even worse drug gangs–the Zetas, for instance, known for cutting off people’s heads and other acts of graphic violence–would be less likely to try to encroach on the state.

“I feel better because we’re protected,” she said. “There are people who are a lot worse.”

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The escape and the humiliation it has heaped on the government have set off a kind of national catharsis. And the fact that Mr. Peña Nieto did not cut short his lengthy visit to France, where he has gone to Napoleon’s tomb and received medals, only confirmed to many how out of touch the government is.

“The government is Chapo’s,” said Genero Reyes Martínez, 30, in Mexico City. “I bet he walked straight out of the main gate. That tunnel was an illusion.”