Joining the ranks of those that "fail up" in America, notorious Mexican drug dealer Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán will now see his life become the subject of a new Netflix television miniseries.
An infamous dealer who rose to the top of his profession in 2003 through a seemingly endless series of brutal murders set within the culture of America's ongoing and increasingly unpopular War on Drugs, Guzmán's life and times will be dissected under the microscope of the streaming video service.
The new series, simply called "El Chapo," produced in collaboration between Netflix and Univision, has been kept under strict secrecy, with producers, cast, and crew under the threat of lawsuit and prosecution.
Adding to the secrecy surrounding the series' production, it was filmed in the Colombian town of Taibo, not in Guzmán's native Mexico, where he operated as head of the Sinaloa cartel. Extras were not told the true nature of the show's content, informed instead that it was a simple Spanish-language soap-opera entitled, "Dolores de Amore," for "Pains of Love," according to Newsweek.
With Guzmán currently in jail in New York, with the lights on 23 hours a day and under constant surveillance, a power struggle has erupted within what was formerly El Chapo's far-reaching gang, adding to widespread violence in the border regions between Mexico and the US.
Lawyers for Guzmán recently launched a series of legal attacks in Mexico against the program, claiming that the show is unauthorized and an invasion of privacy, and are seeking unspecified damages in the form of cash payments and a piece of the copyright pie.
The miniseries will premiere April 23.
