How El Chapo Escaped
Drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been recaptured seven months after he escaped from prison, Mexican authorities announced Friday.
Infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who daringly escaped prison on July 11, utilized a tunnel leading from the only “supermax” maximum-security pri. Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is the longtime head of the multibillion-dollar Sinaloa drug cartel. He first escaped from prison in 2001 and then spent more than a decade on. El Chapo was decked out in camouflage too, and always armed to the teeth with a camouflaged R-15, Alex said. This undated photo provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office shows a diamond-encrusted. D rug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been recaptured seven months after he escaped from prison, Mexican authorities announced Friday. But this isn’t the first time El Chapo, leader of.
El Chapo's prison conditions were bleaker than his first stint — he was in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day, and his cell did not have windows. His cell was located near other drug cartel members, even those who feuded with Sinaloa. In July of 2015, El Chapo escaped from prison once again.
How El Chapo Escaped
But this isn’t the first time El Chapo, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, has been on the lam. The drug kingpin has a long history of capture, escape and recapture.
Here are some major dates in Guzman’s timeline (with some information from the Associated Press):
- June 10, 1993: Mexico announces Guzman’s first capture in Guatemala. But even after Guzman was imprisoned, “He continued to manage his affairs from prison with scarcely a hitch,” writes Robert Saviano in his book ZeroZeroZero. “The maximum security prison Puente Grande, where he was transferred in 1995, became his new base of operations,”
Who Is El Chapo And What Did He Do
- Jan. 19, 2001: With the help of bribed guards, Guzman escapes from his top-security prison. Saviano describes the escape: “One of them—Francisco Camberos Rivera, known as El Chito, or the Silent One—opened the door to El Chapo’s cell and helped him climb into a cart of dirty laundry. They headed down unguarded hallways and through wide-open electronic doors to the inner parking lot, where only one guard was on duty. El Chapo jumped out of the cart and leaped into the trunk of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo.”
- Feb. 22, 2014: El Chapo is captured in Mazatlan after hiding in tunnels for days. The success was touted as a huge win for authorities, who by then had deemed Guzman the “most powerful drug trafficker in the world.”
- July 11, 2015: Guzman escapes through a tunnel from Mexico’s top-security prison. You can see the path he took to escape here.
- Jan. 8, 2016: He is once again re-captured in Los Mochis, Sinaloa after a shootout with Mexican marines. Five people were killed and one marine was wounded in the fight.