Mexico offers reward for capture of escaped drug lord
Mexico has offered a reward of $3.8 million for the capture of the country’s most notorious drug lord, who recently managed to escape a maximum-security prison.
The government of Mexico urged citizens on Monday to help authorities find the country’s most-wanted drug kingpin, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, offering up to 60 million pesos ($3.8 million) in reward for information that could lead to his whereabouts.
“There will be no rest for this criminal,” Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told a news conference, vowing that the authorities will “not stop” until they can find him.
Guzman managed to escape from his cell at the Altiplano jail on Saturday even though he was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet, and surveillance cameras were recording his jail cell 24 hours a day, Osorio Chong said.
The fugitive was last seen right before 9:00 p.m. local time before stepping into his private shower, where prison guards later found a hole and a mile-long tunnel after he disappeared.
Officials said the tunnel, which measured 1.7 meters by 70 centimeters, would allow Guzman to comfortably walk upright. The passage way had ventilation and lights; and guards also found a motorcycle which they believe was used to transport the dirt that was removed as the tunnel was being dug.
Meanwhile, the Mexican government has sacked top prison officials amid suspicions that guards helped him escape. Three senior prison officials, including the director of the Altiplano jail, have been dismissed.
Dozens of prison guards are also being questioned at Altiplano in an investigation.
Guzman “must have counted on the complicity of prison personnel... which if confirmed would constitute an act of treason,” Osorio Chong said. “What happened two days ago is a terrible event that has angered Mexican society.”
Security has been reinforced across Mexico. Flights from nearby Toluca international airport, located in the southern State of Mexico, have been suspended and checkpoints have been set up there.
The neighboring Central American country of Guatemala also increased checks along its northern border with Mexico in response to the news that Guzman had escaped. He had been captured there in 1993.
This was not the first time the notorious drug lord escaped prison. Guzman’s first prison break was in 2001, when he slipped past authorities by hiding in a laundry cart in the western Jalisco state.
Mexican Marines recaptured him in February 2014 in a predawn raid at a condo in Mazatlan, a Pacific resort in Sinaloa State.
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