It was only last year that U.S. and Mexican law enforcement claimed one of their biggest victories in the “war on drugs” — the capture of notorious drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Late Saturday, Mexico security officials announced Guzman had escaped from jail a second time, using a 1.5-kilometer (1-mile) tunnel that opened into the shower area of his cell. He was last seen in the shower area of the Altiplano maximum security prison outside of Mexico City.
The National Security Commission said in a statement that Guzman went to the showers shortly before 9 p.m. Upon checking his cell, authorities found it empty, and according to the Washington Post, discovered “the hatch that led by ladder down to the tunnel, which was illuminated, perforated with PVC piping for ventilation and equipped with adapted motorcycle-on-rails” to help Guzman break free.
Eighteen employees from various part of the Altiplano prison 90 kilometers (56 miles) west of Mexico City have been taken in for questioning, Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said in a news conference Sunday.
A manhunt began immediately late 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 U.S. border with Mexico. Flights have also been suspended at Toluca airport near the penitentiary.
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 13-year chase after he first escaped jail — in a laundry cart, or so the legend goes — culminated in Guzman’s capture in Mazatlán, Mexico, in February 2014, the New York Times reported. Guzman was captured by Mexican marines with intelligence assistance from United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Marshals Service, among others.
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 $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which listed him among the “World’s Most Powerful People,” and ranked him above the presidents of France and Venezuela.
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.
Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. and Mexico, and was on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s most-wanted list. The U.S. has said it would file an extradition request, though it’s not clear if that has already happened.
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