Mexican drug lord JoaquÃn Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo, was recaptured on Friday six months after his Hollywood-style escape from Mexico's most secure prison. He has been sent back to the same prison on Saturday, reports said.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced "Mission accomplished: We have him" but offered little details about the raid.
However, it soon came to light that the drug lord almost slipped out of the hands of the Mexican authorities on Friday, with The New York Times citing officials saying that he managed to escape from the house that was raided but was caught at a hotel that he had driven to in a stolen vehicle.
Mexico's attorney general said that El Chapo tried to escape through the drains when the Mexican Marines special forces carried out an early morning raid in his native state of Sinaloa.
The marines had received a tip-off, reportedly by a citizen in the the city of Los Mochis, and then carried out a raid at a house that left five people dead.
Sounds of gunfire, explosions and hovering helicopters woke up locals at about 3:30 am, leaving them terrified, Reuters reported.
El Chapo's capture comes after at least one failed attempt to pin him as reports in October had said that he had escaped a search operation in the country's north-west with injuries.
The Mexican government, that had been left humiliated after the drug lord's daring escape from the Altiplano high-security prison last July, had conducted one of the largest manhunts for the gangster and had put 60m pesos ($3.8m) on offer for tip-offs about his whereabouts.
El Chapo, who ran the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, had escaped from his cell through a hole dug in the shower floor leading to a mile-long tunnel, which the drug lord traversed through on a modified motorbike.
It was his second prison-break, having escaped a high-security prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry cart.
The US is now likely to push for El Chapo's extradition, which Mexico had refused in the past, as he is facing seven indictments on charges ranging from drug-trafficking to murder, CNN reported.
