El Chapo has been moved eight times at maximum security prison as Mexican officials investigate meeting held with actor Sean Penn and actress Kate del Castillo for possible crimes

Mexico's government is moving Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman constantly from cell to cell inside the maximum security prison where he is being held, the same lockup the elusive drug lord escaped from through a tunnel six months ago. 

Government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said Guzman has been moved eight times at the Altiplano prison after he was recaptured on Friday.

The prison also now has 24-hour video surveillance of Guzman including all parts of his cell. 

Mexican officials also revealed that they are investigating the meeting that then-fugitive Guzman held with actor Sean Penn and actress Kate del Castillo in October to see if any crimes were committed. 

Mexico's government is moving Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman constantly from cell to cell inside the maximum security prison where he is being held, the same lockup the elusive drug lord escaped from through a tunnel six months ago 

The Altiplano prison (pictured) also now has 24-hour video surveillance of Guzman including all parts of his cell

However, government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said on late Tuesday that it is the possibility of illegal acts, rather than specific people, that authorities in Mexico are looking into. 

'We investigate actions, we don't investigate people,' he said. 'The attorney General's Office is investigating this event and others involving contacts that Joaquin Guzman had while he was on the run.'

Carlos Barragan y Salvatierra, a professor of law at Mexico's National University, said there would be little ground to prosecute Penn or Del Castillo, unless money or gifts changed hands.

'If during the dinner El Chapo gave them money, or jewels, or he gave them money for the movie or any other transaction, they could be charged with money laundering,' Barragan y Salvatierra said.

But he noted, 'meeting with a fugitive or criminal is not a crime, even if the law says we should report crimes, there is no punishment for not doing so.'

Asked about scrutiny of his controversial meeting with the fugitive drug lord at a hideout in rural Mexico, Penn on Monday would only say: 'I've got nothin' to hide.'

Mexican officials have said the meeting helped them track down Guzman. Images released to a Mexican newspaper showed that Penn and Del Castillo were under surveillance.

Del Castillo has not publicly commented on the meeting. But a federal official said on Tuesday that Guzman appears to have been infatuated with del Castillo, apparently referring to her by the code name 'Hermosa,' or 'Beautiful.' 

The drug lord also wanted a second meeting with her according to the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

Sanchez, however, did criticize what he said were attempts to glorify drug traffickers. 

Mexican officials also revealed that they are investigating the meeting that then-fugitive Guzman held with actor Sean Penn (left pictured with Guzman) and actress Kate del Castillo in October to see if any crimes were committed

Carlos Barragan y Salvatierra, a professor of law at Mexico's National University, said there would be little ground to prosecute Penn or Del Castillo (pictured), unless money or gifts changed hands

Authorities found DVD's of Del Castillo's series, The Queen of the South, in which she plays a drug lord, when they raided Guzman's Los Mochis home

'We very much regret the acts of any citizen who collaborates with organized crime, because many times drug traffickers have been stereotyped as people who have their good side, or who in some way do good things.'

'They paint them as heroes, and attractive and generous,' Sanchez said. 'The reality is that these types of criminals have raped women, have killed children, have tortured women and men.'

A Los Angeles, California based clothing store has begun advertising flashy blue, baroque-print shirts like the one Guzman wore in a photograph with Penn. 

The company advertised it alongside Guzman's picture, with the slogan 'Most Wanted ... Shirt.' 

In the past, polo shirts like one worn by drug trafficker Edgar Valdez Villarreal, 'La Barbie,' gained broad popularity in Mexico. 

The cell from which Guzman escaped in July had a blind spot around the shower, which officials at the time said was intended to protect inmates' privacy.

'He is being changed from cell to cell without a pattern... he is only spending hours or a couple of days in the same cell,' Sanchez said late on Tuesday night.

July's escape was Guzman's second from a maximum security prison and it deeply embarrassed the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto. 

It also created friction with Washington, which had sought his extradition to the United States. 

This time around, Mexican officials have said they are willing to extradite Guzman but warn the process could take a year. 

In the meantime, they appear to be taking extraordinary measure to prevent a third escape.

'Since he arrived, he has been in eight different cells,' Sanchez said of Guzman's time in prison. 

Guzman's recapture followed the most intensive manhunt in modern Mexican history, with at least 2,500 security and intelligence agents dedicated to getting him.

The government says the hunt involved piecing together information from intelligence, data, interrogations and raids — as well as monitoring actors Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo as they came to interview the world's most wanted trafficker.

The cell from which Guzman escaped in July had a blind spot around the shower, which officials at the time said was intended to protect inmates' privacy

Bullet holes riddle the walls of the second floor of the home that marines raided in their search for Guzman in Los Mochis, Mexico on Monday

Federal officials who were not authorized to be quoted by name said that a significant part of the 2,500-strong force hunting the drug lord were soldiers sent into the mountains where he was hiding, to set up a security perimeter.

While Penn expressed surprise that a soldier at a checkpoint allowed his vehicle through on the way to the meeting with Guzman in October, one of the officials said that action had proved 'very useful' in the hunt, suggesting it was part of the plan.

While Mexican authorities had spent decades chasing Guzman, the chase following his July escape from a top-security prison was different for two reasons, said a former government intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the case.

'One, El Chapo stopped being clandestine. He left the mountain. He met with people, as we now know. That made it easier for intelligence units to find him,' said the ex-official, who maintains sources inside security operations. 

'The other factor: there were, from the time of the escape, 2,500 people from various security agencies exclusively dedicated ... to mount a successful operation.'

Even so, it took six months to catch him, with Mexican news media carrying repeated reports of marine raids into the mountains of Guzman's native Sinaloa state.

Guzman was nabbed early Friday morning after a shootout in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one marine.

The former official interviewed Guzman when he was arrested the first time in 1993 and led operations over the years in the remote mountains of Sinaloa and Durango states, known as the Golden Triangle, after Guzman first escaped a maximum security facility in 2001. 

This frame-grab taken from Jan. 8, 2016 video released by Mexico's presidential press office, shows Mexican navy marines storming a home during the operation to recapture Mexico's most wanted drug kingpin

A tunnel sits under the home where marines searched for Mexican drug lord Joaquin ¿El Chapo¿ Guzman in Los Mochis, Mexico on Monday

He said the size of those operations involved only around 60 troops, not hundreds.

'It was obviously expensive, but they knew they had to flush Chapo Guzman out,' said Michael Vigil, former head of international operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration, who also was briefed on the operation. 

'The only way was by saturating the area where he was.

'It caused him to go to a safe house in Los Mochis. He knew that was going to make him vulnerable, but he had no choice.'

Every phone call or text, every movement in the region was analyzed, the ex-official said, including Guzman's October 2 meeting with Penn and del Castillo.

He and Vigil said that Del Castillo's phone calls, texts and other communications must have been monitored since she had her first real contact with Guzman last year, while he was still in prison. 

Everyone wanted to tell his story, but he said he would only work with the Mexican actress, who the ex-official called 'Mexico's Sharon Stone.'

'The movie was secondary. The first motivation was meeting Kate del Castillo and striking a relationship there,' Vigil said, citing intelligence sources. 

Four days after Penn's October 2 interview, soldiers staged fierce operations in the area of Tamazula, Durango, where the meeting with Penn and Del Castillo took place. 

The ex-official said it took that time to put together the intelligence and mount a raid.

In the end, Guzman narrowly escaped.

Security teams had kept watch on several properties related to Guzman in and around Los Mochis since October, he said. 

But it was only last week that they started noticing a flurry of activity in one of the houses in an upscale neighborhood. 

Intelligence indicated that Guzman's wife, Emma Coronel, had arrived with their twin daughters to celebrate the Feast of the Three Kings, a major Christmas-season holiday for Mexican children.

The timing wasn't an accident, the ex-official said. Holidays and birthdays are the best times to catch suspects.

'They try to be with family, and intelligence units take advantage of these contacts to find out where they are,' he said.

In the end, the ex-official attributed Guzman's capture to the drug lord 'losing his footing.'

When they first met, Guzman was a mid-level capo without the folk hero image he has today. 

He was cautious and humble, addressing authorities in the most formal manner of speech. He could barely write, but is very intelligent, the ex-official said.

Today, the official said, he sees a man who let his ego take over.

Authorities found DVD's of Del Castillo's series, 'The Queen of the South,' in which she plays a drug lord, when they raided his Los Mochis home. 

Both Penn and the government said Guzman hoped to arrange his own movie.

'He fell in love with his own legend,' the ex-official said.