Authorities are questioning a congresswoman from the Mexican state of Sinaloa for her alleged ties to the drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Officials say they have evidence that Congresswoman Lucero Sanchez visited “El Chapo” in Altiplano Federal Prison using false ID before he escaped last year.
She was also with him on New Year’s Eve while he was on the run, said Arely Gomez, Mexico’s attorney general.
Sanchez has been battling these accusations for several months. Last year, she held a news conference in which she denied knowing, visiting or being Guzman’s girlfriend.
Last week, when she asked by local reporters if she ever met “El Chapo,” she admitted meeting him. But she said she didn’t spend New Year’s Eve with him.
Sanchez became the youngest representative in Sinaloa when she was elected at age 24. On Wednesday, she resigned her seat as the state representative for the opposition National Action Party.
Her tenure was characterized by frequent absences. According to El Universal newspaper, she missed or was late to 20 sessions in a one-year period – from December 2013 to December 2014.
Guzman escaped from Altiplano in July through a hole in the floor of his cell’s shower stall and through a ventilated tunnel.
He was nabbed in January in his native Sinaloa state after a shootout that killed six of his people.
It was later revealed that actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo had traveled to Mexico last October to interview Guzman.