News / Mexico

Manhunt for drug lord continues in Mexico

Thursday, 16 July 2015 10:08 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 16 July 2015 10:08 AM ]

The photo dated July 15, 2015 shows the hole (L) in the shower of the Almoloya prison where Joaquin Guzman Loera "El Chapo Guzman" was held and through which he escaped, on July 15, 2015. (AFP photo)

Authorities in Mexico continue a countrywide manhunt for the country’s most notorious drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who recently managed to escape a maximum-security prison.

New CCTV footage released by the Mexican government on Wednesday shows the moment before the drug lord escaped from prison through a tunnel dug in his cell.

It appeared, Mexican officials said, that he got away from his jail cell, knowing full well the blind spots of the camera.

The tunnel, 1.5 km long, was dug in his shower area, and the footage shows Guzman walking in before disappearing from sight and going underground.

Guzman, known as El Chapo or Shorty, is the leader of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel, which smuggles huge amounts of illegal drugs into the US.

Two Federal police officers stand next to a patrol car with a picture of fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. (AFP photo)

It is the fifth day Mexican authorities across the country are looking for the man who continues life on the run.

Officials said that Guzman's escape was discovered on Saturday when officers checked his cell in the Altiplano prison, which is near the capital, Mexico City.

Guzman was born in the town of Badiraguato, 57 years ago, and became an important figure among the drug cartels of the 1980s.

Being the ringleader of the Sinaloa cartel, he is the world's most wanted drug trafficker.

The cartel controls much of the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine to the US.

This is not the first time the notorious drug kingpin escaped from 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 after being arrested in neighboring Guatemala in 1993.

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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