El Chapo’s ride to freedom: First pictures of ‘motorbike on rails’ used by Mexican drugs lord in tunnel escape from prison that ‘he paid for with $50m in bribes’
El Chapo’s ride to freedom: First pictures of ‘motorbike on rails’ used by Mexican drugs lord in tunnel escape from prison that ‘he paid for with $50m in bribes’
- Photos show slim tunnel with oxygen pipes overhead and rails on ground
- 32-foot shaft leading to the tunnel from the prison's showers is also seen
- Holes were bored by the Sinaloa Cartel’s expert mining engineers
- They removed 3,250 tonnes of earth to create mile-long escape route
- Cartel leader Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman used it to flee on Saturday night
Astonishing pictures of the mile-long tunnel through which Sinaloa Cartel boss El Chapo made his escape from a maximum-security prison have emerged today.
The photographs show the tunnel's motorbike on wheels, ventilation pipes and a ladder in the shaft connecting the tunnel to the jail.
The motorbike, which was secured at its front wheel to the rails, was waiting for El Chapo as he descended into the tunnel from the prison shower block on Saturday night.
It is believed he spent $50million on the elaborate underground escape route, which took his engineers around a year to complete.
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Getaway vehicle: The first picture of the motorbike that Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman used to escape from the maximum-security Altiplano prison on Saturday
Getaway vehicle: The first picture of the motorbike that Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman used to escape from the maximum-security Altiplano prison on Saturday
The most recent image of drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman before he escaped from Altiplano prison
The slim tunnel, complete with oxygen-supply piping overhead, was bored by the Sinaloa Cartel’s expert mining engineers, using professional equipment. They would have had to remove more than 3,250 tonnes of earth.
Cartel leader El Chapo, who got his nickname ('The Shorty') from his 5ft 6ins stature, would have been able to stand up in the tunnel.
He prised open a grill in the prison showers, unnoticed by guards, before climbing down a 32ft shaft into the tunnel.
In a video interview, Pablo Escobar’s former chief henchman estimated that El Chapo’s escape would have cost in the region of $50million.
Speaking to news channel Univision, Escobar’s top gunman known as ‘Popeye’, said that tunnelling out of maximum security prison is very difficult without the complicity of at least some of the guards, who are equipped with highly sensitive sonar equipment that will pick up any mining activity.
Search continues: Soldiers and police inspect vehicles at a checkpoint on the road connecting Toluca with Mexico City today. The government has offered a $3.8million reward for the capture of Guzman
An armed soldier quizzes the driver of a pickup on the Toluca-Mexico City road, three days after Guzman fled
The checkpoint, where all types of vehicles are being searched, is causing delays on the highway
‘You have to buy off the guards if you want to have a chance’, said the cartel killer. ‘And they know how rich he is, they’ll have asked for tens of millions of dollars’.
‘El Chapo probably paid around 50 million in bribes alone’.
More than 30 employees who worked at the prison have already been pulled in for questioning in the course of the interview.
Three prison system officials have been fired, including the prison director.
And in a previous prison escape El Chapo had bribed prison guards to push him out of the Puente Grande maximum-security prison, in the western state of Jalisco, in a laundry cart.
Escape: Henchmen working for El Chapo spent a year digging a tunnel, leading from the inside of the Altiplano prison showers to the Santa Juana construction site nearly a mile awyy
Detailed plan: The tunnel was a miracle of underground engineering, and came complete with ventilation, electric lights and a motorbike fitted to rails, to help remove the massive amounts of earth and on which El Chapo could make his getaway
Aerial shot: Satellite photos showing the area before and after El Chapo's escape, taken in February 2014 (left) and February 2015 (right) show the Santa Juana construction site
The Colombian said that while El Chapo may have escaped for the moment from the Mexican authorities, he won’t last long with the CIA and DEA on his tail.
‘Sooner or later he’ll be caught’, he said, ‘it’s not a matter of if, rather than when’.
It came as Mexico’s judiciary and politicians came under scrutiny for their refusal to accede to US demands to extradite him, where he would have been kept in a supermax prison.
In the US he faced 35 charges including of cocaine and marijuana trafficking, organised crime and money laundering.
He faces charges from a number of federal tribunals, including in Illinois, New York, Florida, Texas, California and Arizona, given that the United States in the largest marketplace of the Sinaloa cartel.
Mexican newspaper La Reforma reported that the US Attorney’s department had filed six separate extradition orders for El Chapo to the Mexican government.
Following his arrest in February of last year the US immediately petitioned the Mexican government for his extradition.
The slim tunnel, complete with oxygen-supply piping overhead, was bored by the Sinaloa Cartel’s expert mining engineers, using professional equipment. They would have had to remove more than 3,250 tonnes of earth.
Cartel leader El Chapo, who got his nickname ('The Shorty') from his 5ft 6ins stature, would have been able to stand up in the tunnel.
He prised open a grill in the prison showers, unnoticed by guards, before climbing down a 32ft shaft into the tunnel.
In a video interview, Pablo Escobar’s former chief henchman estimated that El Chapo’s escape would have cost in the region of $50million.
Speaking to news channel Univision, Escobar’s top gunman known as ‘Popeye’, said that tunnelling out of maximum security prison is very difficult without the complicity of at least some of the guards, who are equipped with highly sensitive sonar equipment that will pick up any mining activity.
Search continues: Soldiers and police inspect vehicles at a checkpoint on the road connecting Toluca with Mexico City today. The government has offered a $3.8million reward for the capture of Guzman
An armed soldier quizzes the driver of a pickup on the Toluca-Mexico City road, three days after Guzman fled
The checkpoint, where all types of vehicles are being searched, is causing delays on the highway
‘You have to buy off the guards if you want to have a chance’, said the cartel killer. ‘And they know how rich he is, they’ll have asked for tens of millions of dollars’.
‘El Chapo probably paid around 50 million in bribes alone’.
More than 30 employees who worked at the prison have already been pulled in for questioning in the course of the interview.
Three prison system officials have been fired, including the prison director.
And in a previous prison escape El Chapo had bribed prison guards to push him out of the Puente Grande maximum-security prison, in the western state of Jalisco, in a laundry cart.
Escape: Henchmen working for El Chapo spent a year digging a tunnel, leading from the inside of the Altiplano prison showers to the Santa Juana construction site nearly a mile awyy
Detailed plan: The tunnel was a miracle of underground engineering, and came complete with ventilation, electric lights and a motorbike fitted to rails, to help remove the massive amounts of earth and on which El Chapo could make his getaway
Aerial shot: Satellite photos showing the area before and after El Chapo's escape, taken in February 2014 (left) and February 2015 (right) show the Santa Juana construction site
The Colombian said that while El Chapo may have escaped for the moment from the Mexican authorities, he won’t last long with the CIA and DEA on his tail.
‘Sooner or later he’ll be caught’, he said, ‘it’s not a matter of if, rather than when’.
It came as Mexico’s judiciary and politicians came under scrutiny for their refusal to accede to US demands to extradite him, where he would have been kept in a supermax prison.
In the US he faced 35 charges including of cocaine and marijuana trafficking, organised crime and money laundering.
He faces charges from a number of federal tribunals, including in Illinois, New York, Florida, Texas, California and Arizona, given that the United States in the largest marketplace of the Sinaloa cartel.
Mexican newspaper La Reforma reported that the US Attorney’s department had filed six separate extradition orders for El Chapo to the Mexican government.
Following his arrest in February of last year the US immediately petitioned the Mexican government for his extradition.
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