Mexico City, Jan 9 (EFE).– Mexico’s attorney general said marines were able to recapture Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman due partly to their discovery that the fugitive Sinaloa cartel kingpin had contacted people in the film industry about making a movie about his life.

“An important aspect in determining his location was having discovered Guzman Loera’s intention to film a biopic, to which end he had contacted actresses, actors and producers,” Arely Gomez told reporters Friday at the Mexico City International Airport.

She said surveillance work allowed investigators “to document the meetings of (Guzman’s) attorneys with these people.”

The attorney general said the 58-year-old Guzman, who had escaped from a Mexican maximum-security prison last July through a tunnel dug to his cell, was spotted by helicopter in Pueblo Nuevo, Durango state, in October but managed to escape down a ravine.

She added that security forces had been unable to shoot at him on that occasion because he was accompanied by two women and a young girl.

Investigators then learned through stepped-up intelligence efforts that Guzman planned to move to an urban area,” Gomez said, adding that starting in December a month-long surveillance operation had been set up at a home in Los Mochis, a Pacific coastal city in Guzman’s native state of Sinaloa.

After unusual movements were detected in recent days, investigators became certain that Guzman was inside the residence and made their move early Friday, according to Gomez, who said the raid resulted in a gun battle in which five gunmen were killed, six people were arrested and one marine was wounded.

Guzman escaped through the city’s sewer system along with his security chief, Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, “a highly dangerous criminal” who also was one of the Mexican government’s most-wanted fugitives.

With marines in pursuit, they managed to get to the street through a manhole and flee in stolen vehicles, Gomez said, adding that the federal forces tracked them down on the Los Mochis-Navojoa highway, apprehended them and took them to a roadside motel while waiting for reinforcements.

The attorney general said Guzman would be returned to the same Altiplano maximum-security prison outside Mexico City from which he escaped on July 11 of last year.

The drug lord had earlier busted out of a Mexican prison in 2001 and evaded authorities for more than 13 years before being recaptured on Feb. 22, 2014, in the Pacific resort city of Mazatlan.

The attorney general did not comment on the possibility of Guzman, who has been indicted in several U.S. courts for drug smuggling and homicide, being extradited.

But U.S. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr told EFE Friday that the United States, which had formally asked Mexico to extradite Guzman just weeks before his most recent jailbreak, planned to file a new request. EFE