Mexican drug lord and escape artist Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman must stay in solitary confinement at a New York City lockup to keep him from controlling his drug-trafficking empire from prison, a judge ruled Thursday.

In a written decision, Eastern District Judge Brian Cogan rejected a request by Guzman’s defense team to release him from an ultrahigh-security wing of a jail in lower Manhattan, and allow him in the general inmate population and to receive visitors.