US Authorities Knew ‘El Chapo’ was Planning Escape

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

Since 2014, U.S. federal agents learned of various plots by Mexico’s most famous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and his people to bust out of prison. The U.S. government shared that information with Mexico yet the capo still managed to escape.

Last summer, the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration learned that El Chapo’s son Ivan Archibaldo Guzman had hired people with Mexican military backgrounds in order to plan an escape, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing unnamed sources within the Justice Department, the publication mentions that another plot involved bribing prison employees into helping Guzman Loera escape.

The Wall Street Journal mentions that the Guzman’s escape raises question about how U.S. law enforcement and Mexican law enforcement will continue to work together in the future.

The information comes soon after as Breitbart Texas reported Guzman Loera broke out of a Mexican maximum security prison called Altiplano through a mile-long, state-of-the-art tunnel.

Adding fire to the theory that Guzman’s escape was made possible by help from the inside, Mexican authorities have detained 30 employees at Altiplano prison and the warden for questioning.

The escape delivers a black eye to the Mexican government since his 2014 capture had been the crowning achievement of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s crime-fighting strategy.

Soon after his arrest, Pena Nieto had an interview in Spanish with Univision where he said that his government would take every step necessary to ensure that Guzman doesn’t escape from prison a second time.

“That would be unforgivable,” Pena Nieto said in that interview.

Guzman had initially been captured in 1993 near the border with Guatemala, where his cartel has had a strong presence. He had been sent to the Altiplano prison where years later he managed to escape, apparently using a laundry cart.

Since his first escape Guzman took the Sinaloa Cartel and turned it into one of the most powerful criminal empires in the world.

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