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A source close to the Mexican General Attorney’s Office has just confirmed to AFP on Sunday that it will probe Hollywood actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, who both allegedly set up the interview with drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman while he was on the run in Mexico last year.
The AFP source, which spoke anonymously, did not give further details, only adding that Penn's meetings with El Chapo helped locate the fugitive.
A White House spokesperson refused to comment to CNN whether the actor would be handed over to the Mexican justice if the announcement was confirmed.
"Well, it poses a lot of very interesting questions both for him and for others involved in this-so-called interview, so we'll see what happens on that—I'm not going to get ahead of it," said White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
The interview published Saturday evening in Rolling Stone had been initially carried out last October between Penn and Guzman at an undisclosed location in Mexico, while he was on the run from Mexican authorities.
ANALYSIS: The Legacy of the War on Drugs in Mexico
"One thing I will tell you is that this braggadocious action about how much heroin he sends around the world, including the United States, is maddening,” added the U.S. state official. "We see a heroin epidemic, an opioid addiction epidemic, in this country... But El Chapo's behind bars—that's where he should stay."
In the interview's introduction, Penn is particularly critical of the U.S.’ drug policy and its supposed “war on drugs,” where he emphasized that addiction to illicit drugs has been increasing over the past years in the United States, while drug-related homicides are skyrocketing in Latin American countries like Mexico.
“At an American taxpayer cost of US$25 billion per year, this war's policies have significantly served to kill our children, drain our economies, overwhelm our cops and courts, pick our pockets, crowd our prisons and punch the clock,” he said.
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