The pink house: this is the mansion that “El Chapo” Guzmán built for his mother, Consuelo Loera

The residence is located in the municipality of Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the land of the drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, stands out not only for being in the middle part of a hill, but also for its pink and brown colors.

Although since 2016, after an attack by groups opposed to the Sinaloa cartel, Consuelo Loera stopped living there, the property has remained intact and stands out for its colors and design.

The hacienda-style mansion has rustic finishes and numerous plants that adorn the main façade, surrounded by large hectares of trees and hills. Those who have managed to enter ensure that inside the mansion is very simple.

In the terrace has white plastic chairs and tables, as can be seen in interviews that Consuelo Loera has given to American chains. It also has wooden benches and large patios.

The kitchen, although large, is also simple and has only what is necessary.

Despite the simplicity, Inside the property there is a chapel of the Apostolic Church of the Faith in Christ Jesus, which the founder drug trafficker of the Sinaloa cartel ordered to be built for his mother.

It is not clear if the chapel is registered as a religious association -with legal personality- in Mexico because it does not have the organization’s logo on the facade, however, in the past, in the midst of the war against drug trafficking, “shepherds were not prohibited from entering” and parishioners “were also given entry”, The theologian Felipe Agredano said in an interview in US media in 2014.

“‘El Chapo’ built a temple where every Sunday, from 10 in the morning to one in the afternoon, the followers of the church pray and sing under the orders of a pastor who lives in the town,” he said in 2013. a report from the chain Univision.

The church would have been built in 1989 and in recent years it was used by Consuelo Loera to ask God for two things: The first time that your son straightened the path and looked for another occupation.

And the second “is so that the hearts of the judge and the jury are moved (prior to the trial of the boss) and demonstrate that God is merciful,” Phoebe Eaton published in the trilogy for Kindle In the Thrall of the Mountain King for which he visited La Tuna and interviewed friends and relatives of the capo.

“After all, God was put here to save the black sheep“One of the cartel’s bodyguards commented to the author.

According to Eaton’s description, those attending religious services are those who call themselves “Christians”, although some do not dare to manifest themselves as such. Often, women pray for their drug-trafficking husbands.

“A principle of the temple of Doña Consuelo is not to consume alcohol and not to swear. Men need to dress appropriately, ‘and not like a cholo or a macho’… Women should wear skirts, and no gold or silver, although a modest gold watch marks the ‘Chapo’ mother’s wrist, ”she describes.

Guzmán Loera’s relationship with religion was widely discussed during the trial that followed in New York and led to a life sentence he is serving in the cruelest prison in the United States. Since the “miraculous” appearance of a small statue of Jesús Malverde, the so-called saint of drug traffickers, on a metal cupboard next to the room where the hearings were held, even a woman who went to court every day to pray.

The woman, by name Nedy Fulgencio is a reverend from an evangelical church in Queens, New York, who attended all the trial hearings in Room 8D of the eighth floor of the Federal Court for the Eastern District of Brooklyn, New York, and his mission was to intercede before a celestial power so that the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel he was found not guilty of the 10 serious charges against him.

It is now unknown if the church continues to operate as it after the attack by an armed command, in June 2016, Consuelo Loera had to leave the property in which it was built.