Olivier Fontenelle
Al Jazeera Mexico City Bureau
The AP’s troubling reports that El Chapo might have escaped the Altiplano Maximum Security Federal Prison would be a complete humiliation to the Mexican government, which has repeatedly confirmed the integrity of their penal institution. Joaquin Guzman, also known by his pseudonym “El Chapo”, had previously escaped the Puente Grande maximum security prison on January 19th, 2001. Puente Grande was supposed to be one of the toughest in all Mexico: two guards for each convict, hundreds of isolation cells, sophisticated video surveillance. Joaquín Guzmán would have needed plenty of help to escape, and he got it. Someone opened his electronically secured cell. Someone disabled the video cameras. Someone smuggled him onto a laundry truck in a burlap bag, and someone drove him away. Former President Vicente Fox and his public security chief, Alejandro Gertz Manero, towered with rage as it offered evidence that law in Mexico could be bent with a fistful of money. The 2001 outbreak supposedly cost Guzman $2.5 million.
The Mexican authorities have yet to issue a public statement, and we await details of his recent disappearance. Given Guzman’s high profile, an escape would undermine Mexico’s claims that it has progressed in its war against corruption and the drug cartels.
