Back in my Wisconsin days, we loved a Chicago pop group of the 1960s called The Cryan Shames.  El Chapo must have been singing the bouncy "I Wanna Meet You" from the moment he exchanged messages with Kate Del Castillo, the pretty Mexican actress in the middle of one of the weirdest stories ever heard.

We have no evidence that Kate was working for the Mexican government, or the DEA, but El Chapo was charmed, according to Paulina Villegas:

To the surprise of many, the leader of the largest narcotics organization in history also comes across as oddly caring and polite.

For the seemingly boundless carnage and pain Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel has sown both in his own country and abroad, he appears incongruously human. Mr. Guzmán says he wants Ms. del Castillo to meet his mother.

He offers to get her a cellphone so they can communicate safely, then instructs an associate to get her something fashionable, pretty and with a large screen. Preferably a pink one.

In the messages that surfaced Wednesday, Mr. Guzmán does not solicit anything of Ms. del Castillo outside of friendship and business. There is nothing sexually explicit in the hundreds of messages, taken over the course of three months. Instead, he comes across as more paternal.

He promises he will protect her, care for her as he would “his own eyes,” a common phrase of intimacy shared between fathers and daughters in Mexico.

To this she responds, “No one has ever taken care of me.”

Kate has gone into mute mode, not talking to the media.  It surprises me that she was so careless in establishing contact with a murderer who has killed at random in Mexico.  Kate did tweet something about telling her story sometime soon. 

On the other hand, El Chapo had to know that his cell phone messages and tweets made him vulnerable to capture.  His trips, such a visit to Margarita Island off Venezuela (via Fausta), probably exposed him, too.

I guess that the moral of the story is that girls shouldn't chat with men like El Chapo!

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