Top Drug Lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Known as Mexico's Osama bin Laden Escapes from Prison for the SECOND Time After Breaking Out Through Secret Mile-Long Tunnel System
- Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, head of powerful Sinaloa Cartel, is on the run
- Drugs baron fled through a mile-long underground tunnel under his cell
- Flights have been cancelled in Mexico as armed police hunt him down
- Fled another jail in 2001 with help of guards by hiding in a laundry basket
Daily Mail UK, 12 July 2015
A powerful drug lord known as Mexico's Osama bin Laden has escaped from a maximum security jail for the second time - fleeing through an elaborate network of tunnels underneath his cell.
Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, is on the run from Altiplano jail, 50 miles outside of Mexico City, security officials said.
Officials said his audacious escape saw him flee through the mile-long tunnel, which led to a building under construction next to the prison.
A huge search operation is underway to find the notorious drugs baron, with flights from nearby Toluca Airport cancelled as police desperately try to hunt him down.
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Notorious: Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, head of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, has escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico. Pictured: His arrest in 2014
Jail break: El Chapo was last seen entering the showers of the prison, he has not been seen since
Search; Police have set up a perimeter around the prison in an attempt to capture the drug lord with an estimated personal fortune of $1bn
Guzman, 58, was last seen in the shower area of the prison but disappeared at around 9pm last night. The alarm was raised when he did not return to his cell.
The kingpin - whose El Chapo (The Shorty) nickname is a reference to his 5ft 6ins height - runs a drug empire which stretches across North America and into Europe and Australia.
He was captured in February last year after more than a decade on the run and faces federal drug trafficking indictments in the US. He was also on the US Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted list.
During his time as a fugitive, Guzman transformed himself from a lowly middleman into arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world.
His fortune is estimated at more than $1billion, according to Forbes magazine, which listed him among the 'World's Most Powerful People' and ranked him above the presidents of France and Venezuela.
His 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.
Drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzman escorted to prison by helicopter;
Second jail break: The last time Guzman escaped he was smuggled out of prison in a laundry basket
Powerful: Guzman, 58, ran a drug empire which stretches across North America and into Europe and Australia
Guzman's cartel has been heavily involved in the bloody drug war that has torn through parts of Mexico for the last decade
Sinaloa is believed to control most of the major crossing points for drugs at the US border with Mexico.
Guzman was caught by authorities for the first time in Guatemala in 1993, extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico for murder and drug trafficking.
He escaped from another maximum security prison, Puente Grande in western Jalisco state, in 2001 with the help of prison guards.
His audacious escape saw him hide in a laundry cart, but there are several theories as to how he got away.
Guzman is known for his ability to pay off local residents and even authorities who would tip him off to security operations launched for his capture.
He was finally tracked down to a modest beachside high-rise in the Pacific Coast resort city of Mazatlan in 2014, where he had been hiding with his beauty queen wife and twin daughters.
But before they reached him, security forces went on a several-day chase through Culiacan, the capital of his home Sinaloa state, for which the cartel is named. They found houses where Guzman had apparently been staying with steel-enforced doors and elaborate tunnels that allowed him to escape through the sewer system.
Earlier this year, former Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said that sending Guzman to the US, where he is wanted, would save Mexico a lot of money, but keeping him in Mexico was a question of national sovereignty.
He dismissed concerns that Guzman could escape a second time. That risk 'does not exist,' Murillo Karam said. He has since been replaced by Arely Gomez as attorney general.
El Chapo' Guzman being taken into Altiplano prison (archive);
Guzman's (pictured being arrested in 2014) fortune is estimated at more than $1billion, according to Forbes magazine, which listed him among the 'World's Most Powerful People'
Guzman's cartel is responsible for the deaths of thousands in the drugs war that has bloodied Mexico
El Chapo Guzman's network of drug smuggling tunnels;
In 1993, gunmen linked to the Tijuana-based Arrellano Felix cartel attempted to assassinate Guzman at the Guadalajara airport but instead killed Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, outraging Mexicans.
He was rumored to have once entered a restaurant in Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa state, where his henchmen confiscated every patron's cellphone so their boss could eat without fear of an ambush. He was also rumored to have staged an elaborate public wedding in 2007 to an 18-year-old bride that was attended by officials and local police.
Federal police say they raided the town that day, but got there just a few hours too late.
Guzman had long been reported to move around frequently, using private aircraft, bulletproof SUVs and even all-terrain vehicles.
His location was part of Mexican folklore, with rumors circulating of him being everywhere from Guatemala to almost every corner of Mexico, especially its 'Golden Triangle,' a mountainous, marijuana-growing region straddling the northern states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua.
An archbishop in northern Durango state said in April 2009 that Guzman lived in a town nearby. Days later, investigators found the bodies of two slain army lieutenants with a note: 'Neither the government nor priests can handle El Chapo.'
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