NEW York — The high-security trial of infamous Mexican Drug Lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman got underway on Tuesday, with a prosecutor telling jurors how the man who got his start in a modest marijuana-selling business in Mexico ruthlessly turned it into a blood-drenched smuggling operation that funneled cocaine and other drugs as far north as New York.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Fels told a jury in a New York City courtroom that Guzman “sent killers to wipe out competitors,” and “waged wars against longtime partners … including his own cousins.”

Guzman, who has been held in solitary confinement since his extradition to the United States early last year, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he amassed a multi-billion-dollar fortune smuggling tons of cocaine and other drugs in a vast supply chain that reached New York, New Jersey, Texas and elsewhere north of the border.

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