But a new and unusual event has recently become a must-see attraction: the drug conspiracy trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican crime lord known as El Chapo.
For the last several weeks, the epic legal drama has been drawing crowds of curious narco-tourists who show up, often before dawn, hoping for a glimpse of the world’s most famous drug dealer.
Among the visitors so far: a French scholar of organized crime, an off-duty group of Guatemalan diplomats, a couple from Lithuania, a retired Connecticut banker and a mysterious man carrying a Bible whom court security officers took to calling “The Reverend.”
“Everyone back home is jealous — they can’t believe I’m at the El Chapo trial,” said Greg Gold, a lawyer from Denver, who turned up for the spectacle last week. “It’s better entertainment than ‘Les Mis.'”
Court buffs are, of course, a common sight at prominent proceedings. But even though U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, where Guzman’s case is being heard, has had its share of blockbuster trials over the years, with boldface defendants like John Gotti, rarely, if ever, have so many ordinary people dropped in for a peek.
Getting a spot is not easy. There are only about 50 seats in the courtroom, 17 of which are reserved for the media, government officials and Guzman’s wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro. To secure a place, visitors — including journalists — tend to queue up before 7 a.m. for a trial day that begins at 9:30 and runs, with breaks, until 4:30 p.m.
Gold’s experience was typical. Two weekends ago, he and his girlfriend, who owns an art gallery, flew to Miami for Art Basel, the annual art fair.
Then — for him — they flew to New York and made it to the courthouse in time to hear the testimony of one of Guzmán’s Colombian cocaine suppliers. They stayed a few days, gripped by stories of ton-sized drug deals and cartel bigwigs knocking back mezcal in a remote mountain hideaway. After court let out on Thursday, they flew home to Denver.
Gary Merkling, who works in a paper mill near Green Bay, Wisconsin, flew to New York for only one day — last Tuesday — and early that morning stood in line among the throngs of reporters. Merkling appears to have a fascination with the international cocaine trade. Last year, he said, he went to Colombia to visit the estate of Pablo Escobar, the drug lord who died in a shootout with Colombian authorities in 1993.
But Merkling believes El Chapo is on another level: “I’ve been fascinated with him with for years,” he said. (People have been fascinated with El Chapo from the moment he became a well-known kingpin.)
There was another reason for the trip: He had just turned 35.
“It’s kind of like a birthday present to myself,” Merkling said.
A cartel connoisseur could not have asked for a better gift.
From the moment it began in November, the trial has offered up a cornucopia of drug-world lore — with weird, wild and seemingly unimaginable details. On a single day last week, the jurors heard about a catering company that sneaked cocaine onto airplanes, fraud involving the indigenous people of the Amazonian jungle and a jailhouse murder plot that revolved around a cyanide-laced arepa.
There has, at times, been news: On Wednesday, a witness testified that executives from Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company, once discussed a deal with Guzmán to ship cocaine in the firm’s tanker vessels.
There has also been gore: On Thursday, jurors heard the tale of a trafficker who was shot in the heart while parked at a gas station. He died with his daughter sitting beside him.
That sort of thing apparently appealed to Max Acker, a former Marine enrolled in the sports management master’s program at Columbia University. Several years ago, he said, he wrote a letter to Richard Ramírez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker. On Wednesday, he showed up to see El Chapo with a friend who makes movies.
“You see him on TV and he’s like a larger-than-life figure,” Acker said of the kingpin. “But you rarely get to come in contact with guys like this face to face.”
Twelve years ago, Agustin Juarez did come face to face with Guzmán. A TV cameraman who often covers boxing, Juarez said he was working at a fight in Culiacán, Mexico, and went to a party afterward.
When he arrived, he recalled, “My reporter grabbed me and said, ‘Oh my God, look who’s here.'”
Juarez, who lives in Los Angeles, was in New York last week to cover the Canelo Álvarez-Rocky Fielding fight at Madison Square Garden. With a little time to kill, he showed up at the courthouse Wednesday. “I want to see El Chapo,” he said.
Then there was Jeanie Carlson, who flew in from Chicago to catch Monday’s action.
Carlson, who came with her son, said she had worked for decades in Mexico for General Mills and had been at the Guadalajara airport when one of the most infamous murders connected to Guzmán took place in 1993: the assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, a Mexican bishop.
“It brings back a lot of memories,” Carlson said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.