CNN, 13 July 2015
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, already a nearly mythical character in Mexico, added to his legend over the weekend by escaping from prison yet again.
After his last escape, in 2001 in a laundry cart, he eluded authorities for more than a dozen years.
During that time, the stories told about him veered close to the stuff of legend.
In 2014, when he was arrested in a hotel in the Pacific beach town of Mazatlan, in his home state of Sinaloa, it seemed his influence had its limits.
On Saturday evening, security cameras in the maximum security Altiplano federal prison recorded Guzman approaching a shower area in which prisoners also wash their belongings.
Later Saturday, guards discovered during a routine check that Guzman was missing, a statement from the commission said.
Guzman escaped through a hole in his cell that led to a lighted and ventilated tunnel nearly a mile long, Mexico National Security spokesman Monte Alejandro Rubido García confirmed Sunday morning at a press conference in Mexico City.
He founded his own cartel in 1980 and established outposts in a number of states, eventually inheriting some of his mentor’s territory, according to Time.
His drug empire became Mexico’s most powerful, the Sinaloa Cartel. It was deadly, authorities said. Guzman surrounded himself with ruthless guards and enforcers and reigned over a multibillion-dollar global drug empire that supplied much of the marijuana, cocaine and heroin peddled on the streets of the United States.
In U.S. indictments, the organization has been accused of using assassins and hit squads to maintain its control.
Guzman was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 and extradited to Mexico, where he was convicted and sentenced to a maximum security prison.
One of the most often retold stories about him is how he escaped from the prison in a laundry cart in 2001. The carefully planned escape required bribes and cooperation that allegedly cost him $2.5 million, according to Malcolm Beith’s book “Last Narco.”
Guzman is known for not hesitating to use force when he needs to, and for bribing officials who get in his way, Stewart said.
