MEXICO CITY ( AP) — Much like the late Osama bin Laden, the man the U.S. calls the world’s most powerful drug lord apparently has been hiding in plain sight.

Mexican federal police nearly nabbed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in a coastal mansion in Los Cabos three weeks ago, barely a day after U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with dozens of other foreign ministers in the same southern Baja peninsula resort town.

Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas, Mexico’s assistant attorney general in charge of organized crime investigations, confirmed on Sunday that there was a near miss in late February in the government’s efforts to arrest the man who has become one of the world’s top fugitives since his 2001 prison escape in a laundry truck.

The incident fuels growing speculation that authorities are closing in on Guzman, and that the government of President Felipe Calderon is determined to grab him before his six-year term ends.