Mexico offers $3.8M reward for ‘El Chapo’
Bribes, threats suspected in prison escape of ‘savage’ drug lord
The Mexican government put a $3.8 million price tag on his head, the Chicago Crime Commission once again dubbed him Public Enemy No. 1 and Donald Trump had a beef with him on Twitter.
Still, Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman remained a free man Tuesday, three days after he disappeared from a Mexican prison shower, slipped through a mile-long tunnel and vanished into the night.
The director of Altiplano, the notorious yet apparently pregnable maximum security prison 50 miles outside Mexico City, and two other prison employees have been fired.
Mexico’s Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong provided few details, other than to say all “had something or a lot to do with what happened.”
Scores of people have been interviewed to determine how Guzman put his plan together — and where he went. Most work for the prison.
Chong said that lucrative bribes and ominous threats likely helped Guzman get away.
Authorities hope the reward of 60 million pesos ($3.8 million) will help get him back. Art Bilek, with the Chicago Crime Commission, isn’t optimistic.
The commission on Tuesday named Guzman Public Enemy No. 1, a mantle Guzman claimed in 2013 until his capture a year later. Bilek said Guzman has a similar impact on Chicago as another former No. 1 — Al Capone.
“Guzman, through his Sinaloa cartel, is the major supplier of narcotics in Chicago,” said Bileck, a retired director of training for the city police department. “And he is a savage man, as bad as they come.”
El Chapo — “Shorty” for his small stature of 5-foot-6 — spent about $2.5 million in bribes and other costs to escape a different Mexican prison in 2001. That is small change for the leader of an international cartel who probably nets $10 million a year in Chicago alone, Bileck said.
This week, the international policing agency Interpol sent alerts to almost a dozen countries warning Guzman is again on the loose, and Guatemala said it will closely monitor its border with Mexico.
Guzman was first captured in Guatemala in 1993. He was extradited to Mexico and was serving a 20-year sentence on drug trafficking charges when he completed his first vanishing act. He was recaptured in February 2014.
He vowed to escape again, and internal U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration documents obtained by the Associated Press reveal that U.S. drug agents were tipped that an escape plan was in the works a month after his capture.
Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, slammed Mexico on Twitter for allowing Guzman to escape. Trump tweeted he would “kick his (expletive)!”