Mexico Offers $4 Million Reward For Escaped Drug Lord "El Chapo"

This poster provided by Mexico's attorney general, shows the most recent image of drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman before he escaped from the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office / AP

Mexican authorities are offering a reward of 60 million pesos, or about $4 million, for information leading to the capture of one of the world's most infamous drug lords, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after he escaped from a maximum security prison over the weekend.

The kingpin of the Sinaloa cartel, seen by many as the most dominant and ruthless drug trafficking organization in Mexico, was serving a 20-year sentence after being captured in Guatemala.

Mexico’s secretary of the interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, told reporters Monday that the director of the Altiplano prison west of Mexico City had been fired. He acknowledged that changes to security were necessary in light of Guzmán's escape, but maintained that the prison had adhered to all regulations.

Authorities inspect the exit of the tunnel they claim was used by "El Chapo" to break out of the Altiplano maximum security prison west of Mexico City.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office / AP

“The failure that occurred has angered all of us,” Chong told reporters in Spanish. “Want we all want is the truth, and that’s what we’re working toward, we all want to have him captured."

Guzmán escaped Saturday via a mile-long tunnel that had been fitted with stairs, ventilation, and an adapted motorcycle on rails, authorities said.

Guzmán was last seen at 8:52 p.m. approaching the prison shower area. Guzmán, Chong said, then removed an ankle bracelet that was used as an internal tracking device before heading into the tunnel. The bracelet would have only worked inside the prison.

Chong also said he was certain Guzmán and his accomplices used blueprints to plan the escape. The Mexican government was working closely with other countries, including the United States, in their search for Guzmán.

The elaborate nature of the tunnel and seamlessness of Guzmán's escape was a major embarrassment for the Mexican government, which had rebuffed earlier requests from the U.S. to extradite him. And while Chong did not elaborate on the exact reason for the prison director's firing, critics were quick to point their fingers at a pervasive weakness among government officials: Corruption.

In an op-ed for the blog El Daily Post, a former member of Mexico's domestic intelligence service, Alejandro Hope, wrote that either corruption or intimidation, "or maybe both" almost surely played a key role in facilitating the escape:

Note this: He escaped through a mile-long tunnel, wide enough to hold a motorcycle, and ending in one of the few blind spots in Mexico’s most secure prisons.

How do you do that without some high-level corruption? The engineering feat probably required access to some rather sensitive information, such as the prison’s floor plan and the orientation of the security cameras.

You don’t get that by bribing some random prison guard.

It marks the second time Guzmán has managed to escape from a maximum security prison in Mexico. In 2001, he fled Puente Grande prison, where he had been incarcerated since 1993. There were varying accounts of how he pulled it off, but many involved Guzmán hiding in a laundry cart.

LINK: Neighbors At El Chapo Escape Site Say They Didn’t See A Thing

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