Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jul 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Tracy Wilkinson

MEXICO IS MORTIFIED BY ESCAPE

Drug Lord Breaks Out of Prison Again, This Time Through a Nearly 
Mile- Long Tunnel That Began in a Shower.

MEXICO CITY - 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 
Guzman's 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 f lee 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 Pena 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 for 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.

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 L. A.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.

 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," Ramirez said.

The U. S. government also weighed in.

"We share the government of Mexico's concern regarding the escape of 
Joaquin Guzman Loera ' Chapo' from a Mexican prison," U. S. Atty. 
Gen. Loretta Lynch said in a statement, noting the numerous drug- 
trafficking and organized-crime charges against him in the United 
States. "The U. S. government stands ready to work with our Mexican 
partners to provide any assistance that may help support his swift recapture."

For many here, it strained credulity that such a well-equipped tunnel 
could be constructed without anyone in authority noticing.

"It was just a matter of time that this senor make a mockery of the 
government's holding him," said Arturo Martinez Perez, a 52year-old 
schoolteacher mulling over the news. "They never realized he was 
building a tunnel? Please. They really want us to believe that?"

"It's admirable," said Fabian Lopez, a 41- year-old merchant. "Shows 
you who really runs this country."

Dentist Ernesto Figueroa, 47, suggested with tongue in cheek that 
Guzman be hired to handle some of Mexico's more troubled construction 
projects because he'd do a better job.

"What a shower!" Edgardo Buscaglia, who studies global security 
issues for the United Nations, quipped on his Twitter account.

"There was an enormous act of corruption ... and an absolute 
incompetence" involving prison officials, the intelligence community 
and law enforcement, said Pablo Monzalvo, a national security 
researcher at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City.

Undoubtedly, he said, Guzman continued to run his vast cartel 
operations from inside the prison and now will be able to pick up 
where he never left off.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom