Mexican officials on Sunday formally launched the process to extradite re-captured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to the United States, starting what could be a lengthy road full of legal appeals and maneuvering.<br />Agents notified Guzman at the maximum-security Altiplano prison where he is being held after being recaptured on Friday - six months after he escaped through a tunnel out of the same lockup.<br />Mexico's willingness to extradite Guzman is a sharp turnaround from the last time he was captured in 2014, when then-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said the extradition would happen only after he finished his sentence in Mexico in "300 or 400 years."<br />Mexican authorities say actor Sean Penn's contacts with Guzman helped them track the fugitive down - even if he slipped away from an initial raid on the hideout where the Hollywood actor apparently met him.
