Additional Information: Chapo Guzman 1st prisoner to escape from Altiplano

Lucio R. Borderland Beat

Farmhouse where tunnel construction initiated And Chapo escaped to 

UPDATE:

More than troops were immediately deployed to the borders of such neighboring states of Guerrero,  Mexico, Morelos, Puebla, Michoacán, Queretaro, Hidalgo and Tlaxcala.

Escape Tunnel:

The escape of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman was noted at 20:52 pm Saturday.

The 1.5 km escape tunnel was excavated on a neighboring piece of farming property just southwest of the prison in Santa Juanita. The exit ended in the house in the middle of the cornfield.   Chapo escaped through a hole made in the wall of the shower.  There are no security cameras in the shower.

The “escape hatch” in the shower area was 50 cm rectangle with a depth of a meter and a half where it lead to a vertical tube with a ladder.

A little over a year ago, the building that houses the entry to Chapo’s Altiplano prison escape tunnel, did not exist.

Neighbors say “a couple”, who they assumed were married purchased the property soon after Chapo’s arrest, and constructed the building in less than three months. The couple visited the property a few times.

Locals hired to work on the construction said they were paid “very well”.

No way to verify authenticity 

The ladder leads to a tunnel of about 1.7 meters high and 70 to 80 centimeters wide. Although the length of the tunnel has not been measured accurately,  there is an apx distance of over a 1500 in a straight line.

The tunnel has lighting, ventilation systems with PVC pipe and a full rail system used to extract dirt.  All these features are common to Chapo’s famous drug tunnels.

In the farm house were remnants of workers tools, oxygen tanks, drilling equipment, and a guard area. Furniture and household items indicated the men lived in the house.

Inside farmhouse building

Reports say prison tunnel was very similar to the Culiacán
escape tunnel, (in image above) with a hatch that opened to a ladder descending to tunnel

SEIDO

Guards were taken into custody and immediately transferred to SEIDO for questioning.

It will be interesting to learn who owns the home, and not out of the realm of possibility that it was purchased by someone on behalf of Chapo long before his capture, in preparation of the eventuality he would be captured.

The government is well aware of Chapo’s genius in tunnel construction, and his using tunnels for previous escapes and preparation thereof, to not be cognizant of the possibility of a tunnel being constructed for an escape is incomprehensible, many had to have known what was happening.