Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficker began plotting to break out of prison almost immediately after his recapture at a seaside resort in February last year.
Internal US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) documents obtained by The Associated Press (AP) reveal that drug agents first obtained information in March last year that various family members and narcotics trafficking associates of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman were considering “potential operations to free Guzman.”
The DEA alerted Mexican authorities 16 months ago about the plans, a US official briefed on the investigation said. The official was not authorized to disclose the details and insisted on anonymity to do so.
Mexican Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong on Monday night denied that authorities in Mexico had been informed of potential escapes.
“They themselves have told us that they do not know where that information came from,” he said, referring to US counterparts and the AP’s report.
The Mexican government announced that it is offering a 60 million peso (US$3.81 million) reward for Guzman’s recapture and that it has fired three prison system officials, including the director of the prison where Guzman escaped. So far, 49 people have been questioned by the government’s organized crime unit, including 32 prison employees.
Widely considered the world’s richest and most powerful drug trafficker before his capture last year, Guzman slipped down a shaft from his prison cell’s shower area late on Saturday and disappeared into a sophisticated 1.5km-long tunnel with ventilation, lighting and a motorcycle apparently used to move dirt.
The DEA documents indicate that US agents did not have information about Saturday night’s escape, which was the second time Guzman has fled from one of Mexico’s highest security prisons.
However, the documents revealed that in March last year, agents in Los Angeles reported a possible escape operation funded by Rafael Caro-Quintero, who helped orchestrate the 1985 kidnapping and murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. That plot involved threatening or bribing prison officials. The same investigation revealed four months later that Guzman’s son had sent a team of lawyers and military counterintelligence personnel to design an escape plan.
In December of that year, agents in the DEA’s Houston Field Division reported that a Mexican Army general stated “that a deal was in place to release both Guzman-Loera and imprisoned Los Zetas Cartel leader Miguel Angel ‘Z-40’ Trevino-Morales.”
The DEA documents obtained by the AP do not include details of how the previous escape plots would have been carried out. In them, Guzman is identified as Guzman-Loera.
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