Mexico kingpin 'Chapo' escapes prison again, via tunnel

[Droideka]

Mexico hunts for drug lord after prison tunnel escape

AFP
July 13, 2015, 3:21 pm

Almoloya de Juarez (Mexico) (AFP) - Mexican security forces hunted for drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman after he escaped through an elaborate tunnel under his prison cell's shower, dealing a blow to the government.

The massive manhunt was launched after Guzman vanished late Saturday from the Altiplano maximum-security prison, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Mexico City, in his second jailbreak in 14 years.

Prosecutors questioned some 30 prison employees of various ranks, including the warden, the attorney general's office said, signaling suspicions of a possible inside job.

The Sinaloa cartel kingpin, whose empire stretches around the globe, had been in prison for 17 months, since his recapture in February 2014.

After security cameras lost sight of Guzman, guards found a hole 10 meters (33 feet) deep in the shower with a ladder, National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said.

The gap led to a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) long tunnel with a ventilation and light system that was apparently dug with the help of a motorcycle mounted on a rail to transport tools and remove earth.

The tunnel was 1.7 meters high and around 80 centimeters wide, culminating in a gray brick building on a hill surrounded by pastures in central Mexico State.

Prosecutors released a video showing the hole inside the building's dirt-covered floor. A bed and kitchen were in the facility, indicating that people lived there.

As investigators tried to figure out how Guzman fled again, police and troops manned checkpoints and search cars and trucks on nearby roads.

"If he's not captured in the next 48 hours, he will have completely regained control of the Sinaloa cartel," Mike Vigil, a retired US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) international operations chief, told AFP.

"If he is able to make his way to Sinaloa, his native state, and gets into that mountainous range, it's going to be very difficult to capture him because he enjoys the protection of local villagers."

Several states, including Sinaloa, set up checkpoints on roads. Central Puebla state said it was using X-ray technology at toll booths to see through cars.

Troops in Guatemala launched a special operation at the border with Mexico. It was in that country that Guzman was first arrested in 1993.

Guzman's first escape was in 2001, when he slipped past authorities by hiding in a laundry cart in western Jalisco state.

Marines had recaptured him in February 2014 in a pre-dawn raid in a condo in Mazatlan, a Pacific resort in Sinaloa state, with the DEA's help.

He was then jailed at Altiplano prison, which houses several other infamous drug capos captured during President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration.

- Wanted in US -

"El Chapo surely planned this from the time he was jailed and had very large internal and external support to escape," said Raul Benitez Manaut, security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

"There certainly was corruption inside and outside the prison," he told AFP. "It was a film-like escape."

Authorities had already investigated a strange prison visit to Guzman in March, when a woman managed to see him by using a fake ID to enter the jail.

His second escape was a major setback for Pena Nieto, overshadowing a state visit to France.

Pena Nieto's government has won praise for capturing a slew of kingpins, and Guzman, a diminutive but feared man whose nickname means "Shorty," was his biggest trophy.

Speaking in Paris, Pena Nieto said Guzman's escape was "an affront to the state" and demanded an investigation into whether prison guards helped him.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch voiced "concern" about Guzman's escape and offered Mexico help for his "swift recapture."

Some US prosecutors wanted to ask for his extradition following last year's arrest, but Mexican officials insisted on trying him first.

- 'Public Enemy Number One' -

The United States had offered a $5 million bounty prior to his last arrest, while Chicago -- a popular destination for Sinaloa narcotics -- declared him "Public Enemy Number One."

In his Sinaloa fiefdom, folk ballads known as "narcocorridos," tributes to drug capos, sang his praises.

The rich kingpin -- he was once on Forbes magazine's billionaire list -- married an 18-year-old beauty queen, Emma Coronel, in 2007 and is believed to have 10 children with various women.

Coronel was with him when he was arrested last year. His capture sparked small protests by supporters in Culiacan, Sinaloa's capital, where Guzman nurtured a Robin Hood image.

In Culiacan, authorities found a home with a bathtub that rose up electronically to open a secret tunnel that he used to escape the authorities.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico since 2006, when then president Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers to combat cartels.

 

[Droideka]

Mexican drug lord El Chapo's prison escape tunnel an engineering masterpiece

Date July 13, 2015 - 3:31PM
Tracy Wilkinson

Mexico City: The tunnel stretched a mile long, from the jailhouse shower to an empty building in a cornfield, and was deep enough for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to stand upright as he made his escape.

A minor engineering masterpiece, some might say, equipped with ventilation, lighting, oxygen tanks, scaffolding and a motorcycle contraption for removing the tons of dirt being excavated.

The exit of a tunnel connected to the Altiplano Federal Penitentiary and used by drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman to escape. Photo: Reuters

Guzman, Mexico's most powerful drug lord, escaped sometime on Saturday night from a maximum-security prison through the elaborate, clandestine passageway, authorities announced on Sunday.

He had often used tunnels (as well as bribes and murder) to stay steps ahead of the law during his last decade on the lam. Yet, after his capture last year, the president of Mexico said losing him again would be "unpardonable."

It is the second time Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's largest trafficker of heroin, cocaine and marijuana, has been able to flee jail. The first time was 2001, from a different prison, when he hid in a laundry cart, and he remained a fugitive (albeit sometimes a public one) until his arrest last year.

A police cordon is seen at a warehouse where a tunnel, connected to the Altiplano Federal Penitentiary and used by drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman to escape, ended. Photo: Reuters

Guzman's escape is a major embarrassment for the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which has prided itself for having taken down a number of top cartel leaders.

Mexican authorities launched a manhunt late Saturday after discovering Guzman's disappearance from the maximum-security Altiplano prison about 50 miles west of the capital. Soldiers occupied Mexico City's international airport and roadblocks were set up.

The search extended across several states and beyond Mexico's borders.

The inside of a property, where the exit of a tunnel connected to the Altiplano Federal Penitentiary and used by drug lord Joaquin Guzman to escape was found. Photo: Reuters

More than 30 prison guards and other employees were detained for questioning.

US officials had sought Guzman's extradition, in part in fear that he would take advantage of the weak, corrupt Mexican justice system to continue his trafficking business and even, eventually, break out. Several US federal indictments have been filed against Guzman, including one in California, but Mexico had said it wanted to prosecute him first.

The tunnel that Guzman used to flee was sophisticated. It was nearly 1.6km long and deep enough for him to stand, authorities said. Its opening was a rectangular hole inside the former prisoner's shower, measuring 50cm by 50cm . It then descended 9 metres , ran its length under largely unpopulated land and ended in an unfinished house under construction in the nondescript Santa Juanita neighbourhood, surrounded by empty fields.

Federal police inspect a drainage pipe outside the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya, west of Mexico City on Sunday. Photo: AP

Authorities, attempting to explain how it was possible that such an elaborate construction went unnoticed, said Guzman's shower was the only place in his cell where there were no security cameras.

Monte Alejandro Rubido, Mexico's security commissioner, said Guzman was last seen around 8 pm when he reported for medicine. Then he headed off to the shower. After a time, when he didn't reappear, the alert was sounded and he couldn't be found.

During his previous stint as a fugitive, Guzman became one of the most powerful drug lords in the world. The Sinaloa cartel expanded its reach throughout much of the US, Europe and even Australia. More businesslike than some of the more vicious Mexican cartels, it nevertheless has been deeply involved in violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in recent years.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto addresses the media at the Mexican embassy in Paris on Sunday. Photo: Reuters

Guzman eluded capture easily, reportedly using a network of tunnel under his many houses - including one where the tunnel began under a bath. He had local officials and even part of the security establishment on his payroll and was repeatedly alerted when operations were launched to find him. He was finally tracked down to an apartment complex facing the ocean in the Sinaloan resort city of Mazatlan. He was there with his latest wife, a former beauty queen, and twin daughters, who were born near Los Angeles in 2011.

When he was captured in February last year, he put up no resistance, although - apparently aware that authorities were on his trail - he had fled a few days earlier from the state's capital, Culiacan, through a network of tunnels and sewers. Then, as now, his skill at tunnelling came in handy.

His nickname, El Chapo, means "shorty," and comes from his relative small stature; he stands a little under 165cm . He is thought to be 56, although there are discrepancies on his age.

The drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera, El Chapo, guarded by members of Mexican Navy is moved to a helicopter after his arrest in February 2014. Photo: Bloomberg

Pena Nieto and his top Cabinet members were in France on an official visit when news came of Guzman's latest escape. Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong rushed back to Mexico.

In an interview with Los Angeles-based Mexican reporter Leon Krauze last year, shortly after Guzman's capture, Pena Nieto vehemently rejected the idea that he could escape again.

"It would be more than regrettable, it would be unpardonable that the state and the government not take adequate measures to ensure that what happened years ago not be repeated," the president said.

Soldiers inspect a vehicle at a checkpoint in Acapulco, Mexico on Sunday after news of El Chapo's escape. Photo: Reuters

From Paris on Sunday, the president said only that the escape was unfortunate and a challenge to the Mexican state.

Graco Ramirez, governor of the nearby state of Morelos, one of many on "red alert" after the escape, said the turn of events was "unjustifiable."

"Mexico's penal system is in profound crisis," Mr Ramirez said.

Los Angeles Times