Mexico’s Security Cabinet reportedly said efforts to recapture Guzman have been continuing since his escape from a maximum-security facility through a one-mile tunnel.
Advertisement
Late Friday, the government said Guzman had avoided capture in an operation in the mountains of northwestern Mexico.
Citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the operation, it said the troops raided the ranch with helicopters, but turned back after taking fire from Guzmen’s gunmen.
On Wednesday, Sinaloa Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez confirmed that military operations in a mountainous area of that northwestern state and neighboring Durango were aimed at tracking down the notorious drug lord.
The states of Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua meet in a drug-producing region known as the Gold Triangle, a bastion of Guzman’s drug cartel.
Guzman slipped away from the Altiplano prison, about 90 kilometers west of Mexico City, on July 11 after 17 months behind bars. Samuel Lizarraga, mayor of the Cosala municipality, said that in the previous 10 days officials had recorded the arrival of 250 heads of households, which he estimated meant a total of 600 to 700 adults and children.
Instead they found only medication, cell phones used to trace them, and two-way radios. Marines then entered the camp on foot, but he had already fled.
USA law enforcement officials say Guzman, 58, likely fled there because he enjoys the support of the local population.
Investigators said he had inside help to flee through a tunnel that ran 1.5km from under a shower in his cell to outside the prison.
Mexico has arrested several prison officials since Guzman’s escape. The escape caused a major embarrassment for Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto.
Advertisement
The security footage shows that at least 28 minutes pass from the time Guzman disappears down the hole until guards raise the alarm that the drug lord is not in his cell.
