Prison Break Shines Spotlight on Mexico's Shadowy Corruption Woes Joshua Partlow - The Washington Post
go to original July 13, 2015

The place where drug lord Chapo Guzman popped out of the ground stands alone in rolling farmland roughly equidistant from a military base and the penitentiary where he began his escape.

To build the roughly one-mile tunnel 30 feet below Mexico's highest-security prison, his rescuers would have needed to haul away 379 truckloads of earth, Mexican newspapers have calculated, and used excavating power tools that would have been difficult not to hear.

To guide their burrowing exactly under the shower stall in Hall 2, Cell 20, of the special treatment wing for the country's most dangerous criminals, the tunnelers would have needed a detailed knowledge of the layout of the prison, information considered a state secret.

The questions now have centered on whether Mexico's most audacious prison break was simply a feat of engineering genius and clandestine plotting — or whether other factors were at play.

"The answer is one word: corruption," wrote Alejandro Hope, security analyst and former intelligence official, in his El Universal column on Monday. "Or intimidation. Or perhaps both things."

...Everywhere from political talk shows to the farming communities scattered around the prison, cynicism seemed the prevailing emotion. Mexicans took it as anything but surprising that a rich and powerful criminal might have been able to buy his way to freedom.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

Related: El Chapo's 2nd Escape Could Paralyze Mexico's National Security Plans (InSight Crime)

Related: How El Chapo's Sinaloa Drug Cartel Spread Its Reach Across US (ABC News)

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