The Last Clue Authorities Used To Capture El Chapo Was An Order Of Tacos

In the end, Joaquín Guzmán Loera — the Mexican drug lord and head of the vast Sinaloa Cartel better known as "El Chapo" — was undone by a delivery order of tacos, something the kingpin probably missed quite a bit while he was deep in hiding in the Golden Triangle, the remote and mountainous region where the majority of Mexico's drugs are produced.

According to the New York Times, while tracking the movements of El Chapo and his top lieutenants for the last several months, Mexican authorities eventually followed one of his associates to the city of Los Mochis, Mexico, where workers were constructing a new home for someone identified only as "Grandma" or "Aunt."

By the beginning of January, authorities had noticed "unusual activity in the house."

On January 7, a car pulled up the house that authorities believed to be carrying El Chapo himself — but it was a taco delivery a day later that sealed the drug lord's fate. Just after midnight on January 8, "a big order of tacos was picked up... by a man driving a white van, like the one believed to be driven by Mr. Guzmán's associates," according to the Times.

Four hours later, Mexican marines stormed the new home, and El Chapo, who escaped the commotion through one of his signature tunnels, was eventually captured on nearby Highway 15.

The Times also notes that El Chapo "always took his two cooks with him wherever he went," but apparently, neither could satisfy his fateful craving for tacos that evening.