El Altiplano: The Prison That Became 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Family's Second Home

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Several generations of the Guzman dynasty and the Sinaloa Cartel have been held in Mexico's maximum security prison. Some managed to escape, others were surprised by death behind bars.

El Altiplano has been home to different generations of the Guzman family.

An old moral that resonates in the world of organized crime is that the only way out of that illicit business and environment involving drugs, weapons and violence is death or prison.

There are many stories that expose the tragic outcome that some cartel members have suffered, however, talking about the history of drug trafficking in Mexico is almost impossible without mentioning the Sinaloa Cartel.

In addition to being a key player in the reconfiguration of organized crime in Mexico, the criminal enterprise founded by Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán and Ismael El Mayo Zambada is a clear example of how its members, but also its top capos, have not escaped the warning that foreshadowed their unfortunate fate.

Members of El Chapo's family, for example, have gone from having their stronghold in Culiacan to spending a considerable part of their lives in the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (CEFERESO) No. 1 in Almoloya, State of Mexico, whose walls keep everything from their darkest secrets to memories of the memorable escape of the former Sinaloa drug trafficker.

El Chapo Guzmán's brother murdered at El Altiplano

Arturo Guzmán Loera was the younger brother of 'El Chapo' Guzmán.

Being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a super-maximum security prison in the United States was just one more unfortunate episode in the series of tragic consequences of Joaquín Guzmán Loera becoming the founder of one of the most dangerous and powerful criminal organizations in Mexico and the world.

Although during the first decade of the 2000s his criminal business was slowly turning into an empire, the death of his brother Arturo Guzmán Loera and his son Édgar Guzmán López marked the Sinaloa drug lord's life forever.

Local press reports of the time indicate that, after El Chapo Guzmán was arrested in 1993 in Guatemala, El Pollo - as his brother-in-law was also known - took over the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel and took charge of the children that Joaquín Guzmán Loera had already had with Alejandrina Salazar and Griselda López.

In 2001, the former drug trafficker orchestrated his first escape from the Puente Grande federal prison in Jalisco, a situation that led authorities to redouble their efforts to locate him and weaken his criminal organization.

That same year, Arturo Guzmán Loera was captured in the Mexican capital on charges related to cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking with the intention of being sent to the United States. El Chapo's brother was also accused of being the mastermind of a 60-meter narco tunnel that connected the border city of Tijuana with San Ysidro, California.

El Chapo's brother was one of the first members of the family to enter the maximum security prison

El Pollo was one of the first members of the Guzmán family to set foot in CEFERESO No. 1 -popularly known as El Altiplano-. In those years, the federal penitentiary considered Mexico's maximum security prison housed some of the most dangerous drug traffickers of the time, including some of Joaquín Guzmán Loera's most bitter enemies.

Although El Chapo tried to use his influence and most powerful cards to get his brother's release, everything proved insufficient when at 7:00 p.m. on December 31, 2004 Arturo Guzmán Loera was shot by another inmate in the lounge area of the federal penitentiary.

Chronicles of the time indicate that there were seven shots in the thorax and abdomen that ended El Pollo's life. Information released by the Decentralized Administrative Body for Prevention and Social Readaptation indicated that the person responsible for the crime was identified as José Ramírez Villanueva, who presumably committed the homicide on orders from Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, former leader of the Gulf Cartel and founder of Los Zetas, who was being held in the same prison.

Iván Archivaldo and the psychological torture of CEFERESO No. 1

Arrest of Iván Archivaldo Guzmán.

Being born with the Sinaloa Cartel as a cradle brought Joaquín Guzmán Loera's sons a series of benefits and privileges far from common. However, of the same size were the legal and personal consequences they have -and continue to- face.

In a recent exclusive interview that Dámaso López Serrano, alias Mini Lic, gave to journalist Anabel Hernández, the former partner of Los Chapitos said that during his youth, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar used to have a ever-smiling and cheerful character.

The leader of the most powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel used to walk around armed, with arrogance feeling special in restaurants and nightclubs in Sinaloa and other states in the country, according to statements made by Mini Lic.

Parties and women were part of Chapito's daily life until he allegedly committed a heinous crime that led him to become another member of the Guzmán family to be imprisoned in the maximum security prison of El Altiplano.

Dámaso López Serrano told Anabel Hernández that in 2004 Iván Archivaldo went to a nightclub in Zapopan, Jalisco where he met a young Canadian woman he found attractive. However, the only thing he received from the woman identified as Kristen Paige at night was a big rejection.

"Ivan goes to a bar and has an altercation with a boy who was accompanying a young Canadian woman. They had some words because Ivan tries to reach something with the girl and the companion defends her, and when they leave the bar they start to argue. They were going to come to blows but Ivan and the person he was accompanying took out guns and shot the young men and they died," the former partner of Los Chapitos told the journalist.

A year later, El Chapito was arrested and sent to the maximum security prison located in Almoloya de Juárez, an event that had a considerable influence on his personality.

Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar was released from El Altiplano in 2008

According to the Mini Lic, Iván Archivaldo suffered too much during his time in prison. He cried every night because of the fear that his father's enemies could assassinate him at any moment, as happened to his uncle Arturo Guzmán Loera.

In addition, El Chapito was suffering the ravages of a brutal accident he suffered in December 2003 in which he almost lost one of his legs. At that time, his father began to give drug shipments to him and his brother Jesús Alfredo so that the profits from their sales would be divided between them.

Dámaso López Serrano said that in 2008, Iván Guzmán Salazar was released after his father and associates paid large bribes to different authorities.

The escape of 'El Chapo' Guzmán

El Chapo Guzmán was one of the most mediatic drug trafficking leaders

"The shit has hit the fan, 701 escaped!" was the cry that a guard at El Altiplano shouted when he noticed Joaquín Guzmán Loera was missing from his cell.

The testimony, gathered by journalist Óscar Balderas for MILENIO, narrated that at 9:00 p.m. on July 11, 2015, a code red was activated at the maximum security prison to close all accesses to the prison. It was too late, El Chapo had already escaped.

Joaquín Guzmán Loera had been held in the Almoloya de Juárez federal prison for 17 months after being captured for the second time on February 22, 2014 in a hotel in Mazatlán, Sinaloa.

Investigations by federal and US authorities suggested that the escape was masterminded by Emma Coronel -- the Sinaloa drug lord's wife -- in collusion with their four sons, who currently head the Chapitos faction.

The co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel escaped from CEFERESO No. 1 through a tunnel that connected the bathroom of his cell to a house in a black construction site located in a vacant lot next to the prison. The building had electricity, a rail that El Chapo rode on a motorcycle and even oxygen.

Once outside the prison, Joaquín Guzmán Loera was transported in a pickup truck to San Juan del Río, Querétaro, where a small plane was waiting to take him to the Golden Triangle, where, among poppy and marijuana fields, he remained cautious until his final apprehension.

Ovidio Guzmán's path

Luis Chaparro reveals exclusive image of Ovidio Guzman in Chicago before his legal hearing.

As of this writing, the last of the Guzmán family to have set foot in El Altiplano maximum security prison was Ovidio Guzmán López.

Until 11:27 a.m. on September 15, 2023, El Raton was the 5684th inmate at El Altiplano prison, after which he was extradited to the United States in a stealth operation led by Interpol agents and the Attorney General's Office (FGR).

The member of Los Chapitos was the first son of Joaquín Guzmán Loera to be apprehended during the first days of 2023, after Mexican Armed Forces personnel deployed intense operations in the Jesús María district in Culiacán.

This was the second time that federal authorities tried to arrest Ovidio Guzmán, after the 2019 Culiacanazo scandal, this time mistakes were not allowed.

Despite the fact that hitmen working for Los Chapitos once again unleashed terror and shootings in the Sinaloa capital and surrounding municipalities to prevent the capture of El Ratón, federal authorities quickly airlifted Joaquín Guzmán Loera's son to Mexico City, where his allies could no longer do anything for him.

Ovidio Guzmán entered CEFERESO No. 1 days after his arrest. Due to his profile, he was placed in a sector isolated from the rest of the population. However, testimonies of guards collected by journalist Oscar Balderas described him as a young man who never looked for trouble.

El Raton's relaxed and friendly attitude was not enough to prevent his extradition to the United States, where authorities accused him and his brothers of heading an international fentanyl trafficking network that has unleashed a public health crisis in the country.

Different generations of the Guzman family have made the fortified walls of El Altiplano prison their second home, where much of their lives have been spent amid meticulous security protocols and quarrels with other imprisoned criminal leaders, but that fate remains even more viable than death or extradition.

Milenio