'El Chapo' Mythology Grows in Drug Lord's Home State of Sinaloa <br />By Hans-Maximo Musielik and Daniel Hernandez <br />"Good person" is how the minister of the Apostolic church in Badiraguato, Sinaloa, describes Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. <br /> <br />Francisco Villa Gurrola, in an interview with VICE News in his church, said he knows Guzman's mother and has met the drug lord, a native son of Badiraguato and now the most wanted man in Mexico — again — after his spectacular escape from a maximum-security prison. <br /> <br />"He is a good person," Villa Gurrola said confidently. "He is not a person who threatens, intimidates. He knows how to converse, knows how to speak. As an individual, I recognize him as a good person." <br /> <br />Such views are common in Chapo's home turf of Sinaloa, the narrow western state on the Pacific that is the historic and cultural center of Mexico's modern narco industry. <br /> <br />Guzman rose through the ranks of the Sinaloa federation, got arrested in 1993, and then escaped another maximum-security prison in 2001. He became the most feared capo in the country by the time Mexican authorities captured and jailed him once more in February 2014. <br /> <br />Nearly 17 months later, he did the implausible: escaping again through a mile-long tunnel fitted with a motorbike. Ten days later, Guzman is still at large. <br />Villa Gurrola is an old acquaintance of Guzman's mother, Maria Consuelo Loera, whom he referred to "a great Christian, a great woman." He said he met and spoke with the infamous drug lord once about three years ago. <br /> <br />In a fifteen minute conversation, the pastor invited Guzman to join his church. The drug lord told Villa Gurrola he'd think about it.
