Drug kingpin El Chapo accuses Sean Penn of making up incriminating quotes in Rolling Stone profile
Mexican drug kingpin kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has accused the Hollywood actor Sean Penn of making up quotes in an interview in which he apparently bragged of his huge smuggling network.
The fugitive crime boss' determination to be interviewed by Penn is said to have led detectives straight to his lair - and now he faces prosecution based on his own comments to the actor.
"I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world," he was quoted as saying in the Rolling Stone profile made shortly before his capture.
"I have a fleet of submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats."
El Chapo's lawyers have now accused Penn of making up the remarks - and have said he should be called to give evidence over the "stupidities" in the article.
"Its a lie, absurd speculation from Mr Penn," Juan Pablo Badillo, one of a team of Guzman lawyers," told Reuters when he was asked about the incriminating quotes.
"Mr Penn should be called to testify to respond about the stupidities he has said."
Mr Badillo said that the crime boss would never have made the comments attributed to him as he was "a very serious man, very intelligent".
"Where's the proof? Where's the audio?" he added.
Penn has previously said that he was not allowed to record the interview at the time of their meeting.
However, the Mexican fugitive later sent Penn a 17-minute video of their face-to-face encounter - and it does not contain the reported comments.
Penn has been widely criticized for the way he conducted the interview with Guzman, who was in hiding after staging an audacious jailbreak six months earlier using a network of hidden tunnels leading directly to his cell.
Detectives said that the actor was "essential" to tracking down and recapturing Guzman in an early morning shootout.