Drug lord uses tunnel for second jail break
A manhunt began immediately late on Saturday for the head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which has an international reach and is believed to control most of the major crossing points for drugs at the US border with Mexico.
Guzman was last seen about 9pm on Saturday in the shower area of the Altiplano prison, according to a statement from the National Security Commission.
After a time, he was lost by the prison’s security camera surveillance network. Upon checking his cell, authorities found it empty.
Guzman escaped via a tunnel built under his cell. The kingpin slipped out of the prison through a tunnel more than 1.5 km long which led to a building site in the local town, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said.
Beneath a 50cm by 50cm gap in the shower area, guards found a ladder going down some 10 meters into the tunnel, which was about 1.7 meters high and 70-80cm wide.
Prison workers were quickly detained over the escape. Rubido said 18 officials from the penitentiary had been taken in for interrogation at the unit of the Attorney General’s office specialising in organised crime.
Guzman’s escape is a blow to the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which has received plaudits for its aggressive approach to top drug lords. Since the government took office in late 2012, Mexican authorities have arrested or killed six of them, including Guzman.
Guzman was caught by authorities for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison on drug-trafficking related charges. He escaped from Puente Grande, another Mexican maximum-security prison in western Jalisco state, in 2001 with the help of prison guards.
The lore says he escaped in a laundry cart, although there have been several versions of how he got away.
He was recaptured in February 2014 after eluding authorities for days across his home state of Sinaloa, after which the cartel is named. He was listed as 56 years old last year, though there are discrepancies in his birth date.
Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the US as well as Mexico, and was on the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wanted list.
The US has said it would file an extradition request, though it’s not clear if that has already happened.
Former Mexican attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam said earlier this year that sending Guzman to the United States would save Mexico a lot of money, but that Mexico would prosecute him at home as a matter of national sovereignty.
He dismissed concerns that Guzman could escape a second time. That risk “does not exist,” Murillo Karam said.
During his first stint as a fugitive, Guzman transformed himself from a middling Mexican capo into arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world.
His fortune grew to be estimated at more than $1bn.
Guzman has long been known for his ability to pay off local residents and even authorities, who would tip him off to security operations launched for his capture. He was finally tracked down to a modest beachside high-rise in the Pacific Coast resort city of Mazatlan on February 22, 2014, where he had been hiding with his wife and twin daughters. He was taken in the early morning without a shot fired.
Before they reached him, security forces went on a several-day chase through Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. They found houses where Guzman had been staying with steel-enforced doors and elaborate tunnels that allowed him to escape through the sewer system.
Even with his 2014 capture, Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel empire continues to stretch throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia.
The cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last decade, taking at least an estimated 100,000 lives.
