El Chapo's seemingly tailor-made prison escape tunnel may have cost millions

A photo released by the attorney general of Mexico is said to show the end of a tunnel used by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman to escape from the Altiplano prison near Mexico City. (AFP / Getty Images)

he elaborate tunnel believed to have played a central part in the daring escape of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman from a Mexican prison likely cost the kingpin millions of dollars and took as long as a year to construct, a former federal official says.

“I would say that the construction of that tunnel started days after Chapo Guzman was sent there,” Michael S. Vigil, former chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, told The Times on Monday.

'El Chapo,' one of the world's biggest drug kingpins

Vigil, who has been briefed on the investigation, says construction on the tunnel may have begun as early as a year ago, soon after Guzman was sent to Altiplano, a maximum-security prison about 50 miles west of Mexico City.
The secret passage was nearly a mile long and was about 5 feet, 6 inches high, just tall enough for Guzman, who is believed to be 5 feet, 5 inches at most, to stand up.
“Guzman has hired some of the best individuals that deal with mining technology, and he provides them with the resources to buy the best equipment,” Vigil said. “They tailor-made the tunnel for him.”
Guzman escaped from a 20-inch-square opening inside his prison shower and descended about 30 feet to make his way to the mile-long tunnel, which led to a house under construction and surrounded by empty fields.

Photos show the tunnel was reinforced by a wooden frame and contained lights and a ventilation system made out of PVC pipes, Vigil said. Workers also used GPS technology to accurately route the entrance to his cell and a motorcycle-adapted rail system to move the large amounts of dirt being excavated, he said.

Guzman has become particularly adept at using tunnels and secret passageways to evade authorities – and to run his estimated $1-billion drug cartel.

“Guzman has always utilized tunnels, primarily to funnel tons of drugs into the U.S. consumer market,” Vigil said. His Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s largest and most lucrative trafficker of heroin, cocaine and marijuana, is believed to control a network of hundreds of miles of tunnels and drainage systems along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last year, as officials closed in on Guzman, he slipped down a hydraulic-powered escape hatch in the bottom of a bathtub and fled through the vast sewer and drainage system underneath the city of Culiacan. He was on the lam for several more weeks before the Mexican marines captured him in Mazatlan.
Tunnels used by the Mexican drug cartels
Caption Tunnels used by the Mexican drug cartels
Marco Ugarte / Associated Press

A federal police officer inspects a drainage pipe outside the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya, west of Mexico City. Mexico's most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, escaped from a maximum security prison through a tunnel that opened into the shower area of his cell, the country's top security official announced.
Tunnels used by the Mexican drug cartels
Caption Tunnels used by the Mexican drug cartels
Guillermo Arias / Associated Press

A Mexican army soldier using a flashlight shows reporters a tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of California's border with Mexico in Tijuana. More than 75 such underground passages have been found along the border since 2008, concentrated largely in California and Arizona.

“I’m sure that he had already surveyed the drainage system in the event that he had to make an escape,” Vigil said. “Chapo Guzman does not leave anything to chance.”

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