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Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez noted how the U.S. government sought Guzman's extradition as early as June 16, before he escaped for a second time from a Mexican prison in July.

In an interview conducted for Rolling Stone magazine three months after he escaped from prison, he touted his drug trade, saying he "supplies more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world."

He spent hours talking to actor Sean Penn, who interviewed him for the magazine during a secret meeting in the Mexican jungle. He answered followup questions several weeks later while still on the run, the magazine said. Guzman received the followup questions through an intermediary and answered them in a videotape he sent to Penn.

The article posted online Saturday includes a blunt admission about his intricate dealings in the cartel world. "I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats," Guzman told Penn.

When he was not bragging about his drug trade during his time on the run, the kingpin was trying to make a movie deal.

Police and the military successfully hunted down Guzman and his henchmen this week partly because he or his representatives contacted filmmakers about making an El Chapo biopic, Attorney General Gomez said.

"Another important aspect that allowed us to pinpoint his location was having discovered Guzman Loera's intention to film a biographical movie through establishing communication with actors and producers, which formed a new line of investigation," Gomez said.

Hollywood will likely make a movie or even a series about El Chapo, as it has about other drug lords, such as Colombia's Pablo Escobar in "Narcos."But for now, Guzman won't have a direct hand in any.

His efforts to develop a biopic ends in a scene with an interesting twist: After six months on the lam, Guzman is now back in the same maximum security prison from which he escaped, according to a Mexican law enforcement official with knowledge of the case.

Does he still have sufficient connections to live comfortably behind bars and salvage his damaged position? Or was he not shot because there were orders to bring him in alive, because he is still of some value to someone?

Facing charges in California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Arizona and Florida, not to mention federal indictments, Guzman would die in prison, most likely in the Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, where a number of his rivals now reside. Unless he were to cut a deal. But what sort of deal could he make? He can't trade "up" in the drug world; the only information that Guzman could provide would be against Mexican police and politicians.

One plausible theory for his recent "escape" was that the government needed him to preserve the "Pax Sinaloa," the relative calm and lessening of violence that occurred as a result of Guzman and his cartel winning a 10-year war for supremacy that took over 100,000 lives. If, as it appears, Guzman's reign has ended, it means there is no longer any "drug kingpin" in Mexico, leaving a vacuum that others will seek to fill. The short-lived Pax Sinaloa was a period of relative stability that may well now be replaced with chaos as other smaller cartels, once held under the Sinaloan thumb, seek to claim the top of the pyramid.

Drugs are more plentiful, more powerful and more available than ever. That's not what winning looks like. No offense to the brave people who captured Guzman, but this will have an identical result. Under his leadership the Sinaloa cartel flooded the American market with cheap black-tar heroin to undercut the pharmaceutical companies who make opiate derivatives such as oxycodone and Vicodin.

His ability to elude authorities was due in large part to the support he has among rank-and-file Mexicans. He was also able to pay off local government and military authorities and spread largesse.

“It makes us sad because he is a good guy and gives us security,” said Los Mochis resident Mariana Ocampo, 21.

In the end, it wasn't exhaustive Mexican detective work, nor sophisticated U.S. intelligence, that exposed Guzman's whereabouts. It was ego and a chance at Hollywood.

Mexican Atty. Gen. Arely Gomez said Guzman had been in talks to produce a movie about his life.

“He established communication with actors and producers, which has formed a new line of investigation,” she said in a late-night news conference as Guzman was being transported from Los Mochis.

One of those contacts was apparently actor Sean Penn, who revealed in an article he wrote for Rolling Stone, published Saturday, that he had held a secret interview with Guzman in October at his jungle hide-out in Mexico.

Surrounded by the drug lord's armed security troops, Guzman told Penn of his daring prison escape, in an interview translated by Kate del Castillo, an actress who had famously played a drug trafficker in a Mexican soap opera.

“I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world,” he boasted. “I don't want to be portrayed as a nun.”

Gomez said authorities were able to track Guzman's meetings with lawyers and other associates and were close to capturing him in October, apparently after his meeting with Penn. He had been spied by helicopter, she said, but was accompanied by two women and a child, and so security forces decided not to engage.

Gomez also gave new details about Guzman's summer escape, saying his brother-in-law, two pilots and tunnel engineers were involved. Once he made it through the tunnel, on a motorcycle speeding over specially built rails, he was whisked to an airfield where his airplane and a decoy took off in the night.

In a statement Saturday afternoon, the Mexican government announced the beginning of extradition proceedings that would set the stage for Guzman to face trial in the United States.

The proceedings are in response to two formal extradition requests from the U.S. government for crimes including murder, money laundering and arms possession, according to the statement.

Cunningham is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. He joined the military after 9/11 and has served overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cunningham’s campaign and North Carolina Democrats have focused on health care in the final days of the race, painting Tillis as the candidate who wants to remove protections for North Carolinians with preexisting conditions.

Despite the scandalous headlines, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is sticking with Cunningham. The DSCC confirmed to Fox News in October that it added an additional $3 million to its ad buy for the final two weeks of Cunningham's bid against Tillis.

More than $280 million has been spent on the Cunningham-Tillis race, making it the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history.

Just two blocks away, a big order of tacos was picked up after midnight on Jan. 8 by a man driving a white van, like the one believed to be driven by Mr. Guzmán’s associates, witnesses said.

Hours later, on a highway heading out of town, the authorities finally got Mr. Guzmán, arguably the most powerful drug dealer in the history of the trade, for the third time since 1993.

Mr. Guzmán’s capture — described using information from interviews with witnesses and government officials, police reports, military video and Mexican news reports confirmed by officials — brings to a close, for now, one of the most exhaustive manhunts the Mexican government has conducted, an endeavor that drew in more than 2,500 people across the nation.

As the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Mr. Guzmán is the embodiment of an identity the country has fought to shed for decades.

Either way, Mr. Guzmán represents a deep crisis for Mexico’s leaders as they struggle to define the country’s image.

His daring escape from prison last July, in view of the video camera in his cell, cast a lurid spotlight on the incompetence and corruption that has long dogged the Mexican state, driving many to view the government on a par with criminals.

El Chapo’s image, by contrast, seemed only to grow after his escapes. Perhaps more than the infamy he gained as a cartel chief — responsible for shipping tons of drugs to more than 50 countries around the world, with a wider reach than even Pablo Escobar in his heyday — Mr. Guzmán has earned a reputation as the world’s pre-eminent escape artist.

During the 17 months Mr. Guzmán was locked up, he met often with associates, not only to plan his legal defense, but also to plot his escape, Mexican officials said. His men purchased land within sight of the prison, constructing an outer wall and an unfinished building on the site. From there, a mile away, the digging began.

The Mexican authorities were monitoring the phones of Mr. Guzmán and his accomplices, reading the odd and unexpectedly tender exchanges between him and the actress. Mr. Guzmán promised to protect Ms. del Castillo as he would his own eyes, an affectionate phrase Mexican parents often say of their children.

Six days later, a detachment of marines swept in to capture Mr. Guzmán on his ranch, acting with information from American authorities. During the raid, Mr. Guzmán, who always took his two cooks with him wherever he went, darted into a gully as he fled, injuring his face and leg.

In the following weeks, operations continued in and around areas under Mr. Guzmán’s control. The brutal weather of an approaching winter also concerned the cartel leader — Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa, where life could be more comfortable, was under constant surveillance. He needed to go somewhere outside his traditional zone of influence.

The government, aware that Mr. Guzmán was planning a trip to an urban center, followed one of his associates to a house in Los Mochis, on a busy road with a movie theater, restaurants and shopping nearby.

A commander ordered one of the marines to toss a grenade in front of one of the many doors blocking their advance. As the mission continued, two marines advanced down another hallway, pressing cautiously toward a staircase used by the surviving gunmen to escape to the roof, drawing fire away from the interior of the house.

After the marines arrived, Mr. Guzmán was taken to Mexico City in a helicopter, the capture finally over. Soon everyone was gone, leaving behind just one thing: an unpaid bill, according to an employee of the hotel.

To keep him locked up this time, the authorities said they would rotate his cells, never allowing him to stay anywhere long enough to burrow his way out again. Vigilance would be enhanced, with more officers and round-the-clock surveillance from extra cameras.

But to many, the longer the drug lord remains in prison in Mexico, the higher the risk of flight. His imprisonment could drag on for a year, perhaps longer, given the numerous — and creative — injunctions filed by his team of lawyers to fight his extradition to the United States, where he faces federal indictments on charges that include narcotics trafficking and murder.

During the 17 months Mr. Guzmán was locked up, he met often with associates, not only to plan his legal defense, but also to plot his escape, Mexican officials said. His men purchased land within sight of the prison, constructing an outer wall and an unfinished building on the site. From there, a mile away, the digging began.