Systems administrator played crucial role in capture of "El Chapo"

Christian Rodriguez collaborated with the FBI to bring down Mexican drug lord

The trial of Mexican mobster Joaquin Guzman this week found its most important witness to date: the man who set up his encrypted communication network.

It has been revealed that the system administrator of "El Chapo" played a crucial role in his capture by enabling the FBI to listen to encrypted phone calls.

The phone calls contained conversations between Guzman and family members, bribed police officers, cartel members and business partners.

They used a network created by Christian Rodriguez, an engineer specialising in cybersecurity who dropped out of college to start his own business. Shortly after, he got involved with drug cartels, who hired him to set up encrypted electronic networks for them.

Following a recommendation from Colombian cocaine supplier Jorge Cifuentes, Guzman hired Rodriguez to create an electronic network that blocked investigators from intercepting with his calls and enabled him to spy on his family members.

He set up a secure comms network using an encrypted VoIP network which could only be accessed by those within the system. Guzman could log into the system using his Wi-Fi and make encrypted calls to associates without being detected by authorities.

The FBI found out about Rodriguez's involvement with the drug lord and contacted him. He agreed to support their investigation by shifting the servers used by Guzman from Canada to the Netherlands and giving them decryption keys.

This enabled the FBI to listen to phone calls made by Guzman and gather crucial information about his associates, private life and whereabouts.

On one account he talked with one of his bodyguards about chasing police officers, in another he joked about arming his 18-month old daughter with a rifle.

The information gathered through the phone calls is crucial evidence in the trial against Guzman, who was once the most-wanted man in the world.

He managed to escape prison multiple times in Mexico and was eventually caught and extradited to the US in 2016.

He is now housed in a high-security prison in New York State and, if found guilty, will almost certainly be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison - a prison that will be a lot harder to escape from.