The actor met with the world's most wanted drug lord in the jungle to ask him a handful of Hollywood-worthy questions such as 'do you dream?' and 'how would you define yourself?'

And then just hours after the Sinaloa cartel leader was detained by Mexican marines, the Rolling Stone published a lyrical 10,000-word account of their meeting.

Supposedly the entire 'clandestine horror show' - as Penn put it - was part of a research project to develop a Netflix-style drama about Guzmán and his prison break.

Many referenced the 1985 movie The Falcon And The Snowman, in which Penn plays a CIA informant.

The sensational meeting took place deep in the Mexican jungle in October and was arranged by Penn, Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and a fixer, with the permission of the Sinaloa cartel.

Plotted: The meeting in Mexico was arranged by Penn, Mexican actress Kate del Castillo (pictured with Penn and musicians) and a fixer

El Chapo admitted in the bizarre interview to being the biggest drug trafficker in the world and said he sent engineers to Germany to learn how to build the tunnel he would eventually use to escape a maximum security prison.

The cartel boss was captured on Friday in a daring 4am raid by Mexican marines and was returned to Altiplano jail. The double Oscar-winning actor's meeting with El Chapo led to the gun battle in which he was captured, an official said.

The U.S. has filed at least seven extradition requests in six different states for Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman to be extradited to America

It would hardly be the first time the CIA had tapped a Hollywood-ite for their connections to take a different approach an international political case, Daily Mail Reported.

The Central Intelligence Agency is openly cooperative with Hollywood.

Researchers who specialize in the CIA's connection with Hollywood, Dr Matthew Alford and Tom Secker, told DailyMail on Sunday: 'Spies have long used Hollywood as a front, from Pretty Woman producer Arnon Milchan, who admitted to stealing US nuclear secrets for Mossad, to Frederick Forsyth who did 'favours' for MI6. So the theory that Sean Penn was part of a CIA sting operation is an intriguing possibility.'

Indeed, Tricia Jenkins, author of The CIA in Hollywood, told DailyMail.com last year that she had recently acquired new evidence showing how the CIA worked off-the-books to influence Hollywood scripts to an extent never previously known.

She said: 'In this documentation, concerning one major Hollywood movie, it is clear that the CIA functioned as the principle partner in shaping the original script and its influence exceeded that which would have been filled by an aggressive producer or studio executive.'

Penn wrote that El Chapo sent engineers - who were already accomplished in tunnel-building from the multitudes of underground paths they have built beneath the US -Mexico border - to Germany to learn how to construct the tunnel he fled down as he escaped from prison in July last year.