The tunnel stretched a mile long, from the jailhouse
shower to an empty building in a cornfield, and was deep enough for drug
kingpin 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.
Guzman, Mexico’s most powerful drug
lord, escaped sometime Saturday night from a maximum-security prison through
the clandestine passageway, authorities announced 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 and most lucrative trafficker of heroin, cocaine and
marijuana, has been able to flee jail. The first time was 2001, from a
different prison, when he famously hid in a laundry cart, and he remained a
fugitive — albeit sometimes a public one — until his arrest last year.
Guzman’s escape is a major embarrassment
for the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto, which has prided itself
for having taken down a string of top cartel leaders. Authorities launched a massive manhunt
late Saturday after discovering Guzman’s disappearance from the Altiplano
prison about 50 miles west of the capital. Soldiers occupied Mexico City’s
international airport and roadblocks were set up at numerous spots in the area.The search extended across several
states and beyond Mexico’s borders.More than 30 prison guards and other
employees were detained for questioning.
U.S. officials had sought Guzman’s extradition, in
part for precisely the fear that he would take advantage of the weak, corrupt
Mexican justice system to continue his trafficking business and even,
eventually, break out. Several U.S. 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 a mile long and deep enough for him to stand,
authorities said. Its opening was a rectangular hole in the former prisoner’s
shower, measuring 20 inches by 20 inches. It then descended 30 feet, ran its
length under largely unpopulated land and ended in a somewhat isolated house
under construction in the nondescript Santa Juanita neighborhood, surrounded by
empty fields. Authorities, attempting to explain how
it was possible or such an elaborate construction to have taken place
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 about 8 p.m. when he reported for
medicine. Then he headed off to the shower. After a time, when he never
reappeared, the alert was sounded and he couldn’t be found. “This is something that had been cooking
for months,” security expert and former government intelligence officer
Alejandro Hope said in a television interview. “It shows the weakness of the
entire chain of [Mexico’s] judicial system.”
During his previous stint as a fugitive,
Guzman became one of the most powerful drug lords in the world. Forbes magazine
once estimated his fortune at more than $1 billion, and he was the stuff of
legends. The Sinaloa cartel expanded its reach throughout much
of the U.S., Europe and even Australia. More businesslike than some of the more
vicious Mexican cartels, it nevertheless has been deeply involved in the
violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives here in recent years. Guzman eluded capture easily. 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 on Feb. 22, 2014,
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 tunneling
came in handy. The U.S. had offered more than $5
million for his capture.
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