Depending on who you believe, Rosa Isela Guzman Ortiz is either the daughter of drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, or a hairdresser with a vivid imagination.

Rosa was first profiled in a piece by a Mexican journalist for The Guardian last March, and just last month Rosa Isela appeared at El Chapo’s Brooklyn court date.

El Chapo faces charges related to drug trafficking, money laundering, and firearms, but it’s the story of his ‘daughter’ that has captivated the Spanish-language media.

The Daily Beast set the story:

…Mexican politicians have demanded an investigation into her claims about his connections…

After an extensive investigation into Rosa Isela’s story—a story that keeps changing and includes allegations of identity theft, cartel intrigue and FBI involvement—the evidence seems to indicate that the sobbing woman in the Brooklyn court is a Mexican-born salon worker, living in California under a host of various identities. But is she actually El Chapo’s secret daughter?

Rosa Isela granted the Daily Beast an interview, so let’s run through some of her claims and those made against her:

…the cartel leader’s most recent wife, Emma Coronel, has disputed Rosa Isela’s paternity claims.

“When he was detained, Joaquin told me that this woman started writing letters to him, saying that her mother had told her that [El Chapo] was her father,” Coronel wrote in a letter after the Guardian article was published. “This was the first time that he heard of her.”

Coronel claims El Chapo had responded to Rosa Isela as a “courtesy.” But Rosa Isela claims to have more than 15 letters to and from El Chapo, in which he calls her his daughter. “That’s more than just a courtesy,” she told The Daily Beast, while refusing to share proof of the letters.

Despite the fact that Daddy probably isn’t surfing Facebook, Rosa Isela has a habit of declaring her love for him on the site:

“He took care of his princess,” she wrote on Facebook this March, in Spanish, sharing a meme that read, “My daddy buys me everything I want.”

He’ll never see it, just like that Father’s Day pic you posted on Sunday.

El Chapo’s defense attorneys aren’t lapping up her story, though:

“Regarding the ‘daughter’ it seems peculiar indeed that the government is prepared to allow Rosa Isela Guzman Ortiz to establish her paternity through an article in The Guardian, but required Ms. Coronel to submit legal documentation of her relationship to Mr. Guzman,” the attorneys wrote. “Mr. Guzman does not believe that Ms. Guzman Ortiz is in fact his daughter and maintains that he has no relationship with her.”

When the Daily Beast asked her why she had come forward with her story, if her father was already supporting her financially, this was her answer:

“We want [El Chapo] to cooperate with the government, tell his story, and be granted house arrest in my house, that’s what I want,” she said. “My dad’s old, and when you said that I’d been seen crying, that’s obvious. Blood hurts. I think it’s less painful for [his current wife, Emma Coronel] than it is for his children, his own blood.”

“It was frustrating to see him [in court], not understanding English, unable to explain to him what was happening. The impotence made me very sad … To see him like that—vulnerable—it’s surprising, makes me want to jump over the barrier and say ‘Hey, leave my dad alone,’” she explained.

“To me, he’s my daddy, he’s always been, so seeing him like that, turning as if to say ‘don’t cry,’ I just want to hug him and say everything’s going to be alright,” she explained. “I see him, just nodding, answering everyone, ‘Si, señor. Si, señor,’ I think, oh my God, someone help. I just want to explain to him, this is what’s happening.”

There’s so much to this one that we can’t cover it all, but after some in-depth digging the Daily Beast don’t seem very convinced.

Rosa Isela, or whoever she is, was not at all impressed:

Over the weekend, after threatening to sue The Daily Beast’s reporters, Rosa Isela’s Facebook page uploaded a new cover photo—an image of Chucky, the serial killer doll from “Child’s Play,” with the words ‘You’re Fucked” superimposed. Her new profile image is also Chucky. It reads, in Spanish, “Then they ask why they got killed.”

“Go ahead keep fucking with me,” she wrote. “Don’t complain later.”

That seems straight out of the El Chapo playbook, so for the sake of those reporters I hope she’s talking bollocks.

You can read the full account, and all that in-depth digging, HERE.

[source:dailybeast]