A Twitter account associated with Joaquin Guzman’s son Ivan fired back at Trump after the billionaire politician used the drug lord’s escape to prove his point about how Mexico is a unsafe place. The United States’ intelligence community largely regards the cartel as the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world.
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Guzman has been a long-wanted figure by the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Treasury once described him as “the most powerful drug trafficker in the world”.
The United States had offered a US$5 million (RM18.96 million) bounty prior to his last arrest, while Chicago – a popular destination for Sinaloa narcotics – declared him “Public Enemy Number One”.
Flights were suspended at the nearby Toluca airport overnight. He went to the shower area but after some time was lost by security camera surveillance.
Speaking during a visit to Paris yesterday, a “deeply troubled” Pena Nieto demanded an investigation on whether guards helped the inmate flee through a secretly built tunnel under his cell. Since the government took office in late 2012, Mexican authorities have nabbed or killed six of them, including Guzman. The prison break will now certainly overshadow his trip.
ALMOLOYA DE JUÁREZ, Mexico: It was meant to be an impenetrable fortress to keep Mexico’s most infamous murderers, kidnappers and drug lords behind bars for most of their lives.
The internal DEA documents reveal that drug agents first got information on escape plans in March 2014, about a month after Guzman was captured in the seaside resort town of Mazatlan, Mexico.
Prison guards aided Guzman in his last escape in 2001, from Puente Grande jail in western Jalisco state. In a stamen today, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the US shares “Mexico’s concern regarding the escape” and stands by to help in the manhunt. He said that it was a matter of national sovereignty to hold this criminal down there. That risk “does not exist”, Mr Murillo Karam said. “It wasn’t overconfidence, it was Mexican judicial nationalism…”
“This is going to be a massive black eye for Pena Nieto’s administration”, said Mike Vigil, ex- head of global operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Considering the efforts that have gone into building such an elaborate escape tunnel, it is hard to believe that no prison guard noticed it. However, the tunnel is said to have been neatly camouflaged with large open ditches and lots of metal drainage pipes.
His Sinaloa Cartel took over much of the lucrative trafficking routes along the USA border, including cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.
– 1995: Guzman is convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The lore said he escaped in laundry cart, though there were several versions of how he got away.
Guzman was finally re-captured in February 2014 after eluding authorities for days across his home state of Sinaloa, for which the cartel is named. The last time he was free for 13 years.
Officials say they expect Guzman to disappear once more into his organization’s well-organized infrastructure built to hide him.
The crime boss’s wealth is estimated at £630million by Forbes magazine, who once ranked him above the presidents of France and Venezuela in their list of the world’s most powerful people.
– June 10, 1993: Mexican authorities announce Guzman’s capture in Guatemala.
This is his second jailbreak and a huge embarrassment to the government. The Drive-Bys are marveling, folks, over what an engineering feat it is, just like they used to marvel how Bill Clinton lied to them.
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The manhunt began immediately after the escape, but so far, authorities haven’t been able to catch the drug lord who capitalized on drug markets in Asia and Europe to continue building his empire.
