El Chapo on the Ropes?

Mexico's government is claiming to have all but shut down the operations of one of the country's most notorious kingpins, el Chapo Guzmán. Government forces have seized some huge shipments of cocaine in the year and a half since Felipe Calderón arrived in the presidency, and, evidently, most of it was his. All told, in thirteen months, the cartel lost more than $5 billion thanks to the government's anti-narcotics operations. Ironically, when Calderón first came to power, I remember hearing and reading quite a bit about how el Chapo was the "capo consentido," the kingpin most favored by the government. Guess not.