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| Joaquín Guzmán Loera, Mexican Drug Kingpin, Escapes Prison | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Joaquín Guzmán Loera, one of the world’s most infamous drug lords, escaped from his maximum security prison cell through a tunnel dug from the shower, Mexican security officials said on Sunday, creating an acute embarrassment for the government, which had trumpeted his capture less than two years ago as a crucial victory in the long and bloody war against the narcotics trade. | Joaquín Guzmán Loera, one of the world’s most infamous drug lords, escaped from his maximum security prison cell through a tunnel dug from the shower, Mexican security officials said on Sunday, creating an acute embarrassment for the government, which had trumpeted his capture less than two years ago as a crucial victory in the long and bloody war against the narcotics trade. |
| The escape, which was discovered late Saturday, was the second time that Mr. Guzman — known as El Chapo, or “Shorty” — has broken out of jail. In 2001, he escaped in a laundry cart, the beginning of his rise from a powerful cartel lieutenant into Mexico’s biggest drug lord. | The escape, which was discovered late Saturday, was the second time that Mr. Guzman — known as El Chapo, or “Shorty” — has broken out of jail. In 2001, he escaped in a laundry cart, the beginning of his rise from a powerful cartel lieutenant into Mexico’s biggest drug lord. |
| Officials said that he had escaped through a narrow opening of about 20 inches by 20 inches that was dug from his shower. It linked up with a broader, much more elaborate tunnel that was 1.5 kilometers long, or about a mile, and about 33 feet deep that was connected by a ladder. | |
| Mr. Guzmán was being held in Mexico’s most secure prison, the Altiplano, about a 90-minute drive west from the capital. The police were deployed to watch all the roads around the area, and the nearby airport of Toluca was closed. | |
| The breakout comes as a major blow to the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, which has succeeded in capturing a number of drug bosses along with Mr. Guzmán but has faced the rise of new criminal groups that have emerged as larger groups have splintered. | |
| Mr. Guzmán was last seen shortly before 9 on Saturday evening on the prison’s video cameras when he entered the shower. After he did not come out, guards entered his cell only to find it empty. | |
| The tunnel that Mr. Guzmán used to reach freedom was an elaborate construction, tall enough for him to walk upright and about two to two and a half feet wide, Mexico’s security commissioner, Monte Alejandro Rubido, said in a news conference on Sunday morning. | |
| No detail was spared. There was tubing for ventilation, lighting and a motorcycle on rails that Mr. Rubido said was most likely used to transport tools into the tunnel and haul out dirt. Along its course the tunnel was equipped with oxygen tanks, fuel canisters and construction materials including wooden beams. | |
| It opened onto a construction site in the neighborhood of Santa Juanita in the municipality of Almoloya de Juárez. | |
| Eighteen prison employees were taken into custody for questioning, the authorities said. | Eighteen prison employees were taken into custody for questioning, the authorities said. |
| Days before Mr. Guzmán’s capture last year, Mexican marines and American agents raided the home of his ex-wife only to find that he had fled though a secret door beneath a bathtub that led to a network of tunnels and sewer canals that connected to six other houses in Culiacán, the capital city of Sinaloa, the state where his cartel was based. | Days before Mr. Guzmán’s capture last year, Mexican marines and American agents raided the home of his ex-wife only to find that he had fled though a secret door beneath a bathtub that led to a network of tunnels and sewer canals that connected to six other houses in Culiacán, the capital city of Sinaloa, the state where his cartel was based. |
| Mr. Guzmán was finally captured at an apartment he used in the Pacific seaside resort city of Mazatlán. | Mr. Guzmán was finally captured at an apartment he used in the Pacific seaside resort city of Mazatlán. |
| Before his capture, Mr. Guzmán presided over a vast network that smuggled cocaine and marijuana into the United States and reached as far as Europe and Africa. | Before his capture, Mr. Guzmán presided over a vast network that smuggled cocaine and marijuana into the United States and reached as far as Europe and Africa. |
| Mr. Guzmán faces organized crime and drug trafficking charges in the United States, but Mexican officials said that he would have serve his sentence in Mexico before he would be extradited. | Mr. Guzmán faces organized crime and drug trafficking charges in the United States, but Mexican officials said that he would have serve his sentence in Mexico before he would be extradited. |
| In January, Mexico’s attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, told The Associated Press that Mr. Guzmán would never serve time in the United States. | |
| “I could accept extradition, but at the time that I choose. ‘El Chapo’ must stay here to complete his sentence, and then I will extradite him,” Mr. Murillo Karam said then. “So about 300 or 400 years later — it will be a while.” | |
| The United States never filed a formal extradition request, though American officials did discuss it with their Mexican counterparts, who made it clear that they would not readily give him up, American law enforcement officials said not long after Mr. Guzmán’s arrest last year. | |
| He faces indictments in at least seven American federal courts on charges of drug trafficking, organized crime and murder. In October, a new indictment in federal court in Brooklyn linked him and associates to hundreds of acts of murder, assault, kidnapping and torture. | |
| Mr. Guzmán’s escape this weekend occurred while Mr. Peña Nieto was in France on a state visit. | Mr. Guzmán’s escape this weekend occurred while Mr. Peña Nieto was in France on a state visit. |