Mexico makes 'key' arrests in drug kingpin's escape
Authorities in Mexico have arrested the pilot and brother-in-law of fugitive drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
Prosecutors in Mexico City announced on Wednesday that Guzman's brother-in-law had helped him in his July jailbreak, also accusing the pilot of flying Guzman out of town.
Attorney General Arely Gomez told reporters, "We can say that the group responsible for planning, organizing and carrying out the escape from the outside has been broken up."
Gomez also said the brother-in-law supervised and organized the construction of a 1.5-kilometer tunnel leading to a hole in Guzman's cell shower in central Mexico State as well as other parts of the escape.
According to Gomez, the brother-in-law had repeatedly entered the Altiplano Prison to visit Guzman and update him on the operation of his escape’s progress.
The pilot had also flown narcotics for the kingpin's Sinaloa drug cartel, Gomez said.
The official, however, refused to reveal the names of those captured.
Guzman traveled by land to the city of Queretaro, according to Gomez, from where he caught a small plane to his home state of Sinaloa and Durango.
One of the planes, explained Gomez, took Guzman to the area "where he has taken refuge,” while not specifying where Guzman was exactly flown to.
The latest development in the search for Guzman comes days after Mexico's special marine forces came close to catching the 58-year-old fugitive during raids in the northwest of the country earlier this month.
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is the head of the notorious Sinaloa cartel. He escaped from a high-security prison through a specially dug tunnel. He is still on the run and Mexican officials have been looking for him since July 11.
Last month, several jail authorities were arrested for giving inside help to Guzman on how to flee.
This is not the first time Guzman was arrested. The drug cartel leader was first arrested in Guatemala in 1993 and spent nearly a decade in another maximum-security Mexican jail before escaping allegedly in a laundry basket.
Before his second arrest in 2014, Guzman was on the run for 13 years after a series of high-profile arrests of associates and covert surveillance by Mexican and US authorities.
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