That is to say, the spyware Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman installed on his own wife and girlfriends’ phones.
The story in Twitter form:
The texts are mind-boggling.
One moment, the couple is cooing over how cute their twin daughters are and talking about Emma's enchiladas, the next their talking about whether Chapo's soldiers were slaughtered in a gunfight.— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019
Having left everything behind in the panicked escape, Chapo then asks Emma to send him what he needs: sweats, underwear, some shirts & shoes, shampoo, after shave–and, yes, black mustache dye.
— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019
But there's more.
Chapo wasn't only spying on Emma's phone. He had two side chicks (who look exactly like her by the way) and he was spying on their phones too.
So guess what the FBI got their hands on?
That's where we're headed after this quick break, it seems.— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019
Oh forgot to mention:
Emma, the wife, was so knee deep in Chapo's business that she would often hand her phone to her father who was one of Chapo's lieutenants.
Chapo and the father used Emma's phones to plan major-league drug deals.
Un. Be. Lievable.— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019
Agustina is clearly shrewd. She knows Chapo's spying on her & complains about it to her friends. She tells one friend she "doesn't trust" the BlackBerries he's given her "because the bastard can locate them." She refers to him as an idiot.
"I'm way smarter than him," she writes.— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019
It bears repeating:
Chapo ran what seems to be a substantial amount of his international drug business through the women he was involved with.
We know this because he was spying on them and the FBI was able to leverage his paranoia into devastating evidence.— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019
How freaking stupid a drug lord do you have to be to doing drug deals through your mistresses?
But El Chapo violated a whole lot of “Crime Boss 101” rules:
Finally, to misquote Nietzsche: “Gaze not into the spyware, for the spyware also gazes into you.”
Oh, wow:
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At one point, he asked Rodriguez to install a new feature on the phones, allowing him to remotely — and secretly — activate their microphones.
Chapo would play a little game. He would call people who had the “special” phones and chat with them a while then hang up, secretly activate the mic and listen to what they said about him.
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The NY Daily News?
Thank you for reading that fish wrap, aka birdcage liner, so I don’t have to.
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