Friday, July 17, 2015

7 Prison Workers Charged in El chapo guzman escape, Mexican authorities announced a $3.8 million reward

7 Prison Workers Charged in

Mexico’s attorney general said Friday in a statement that the prison workers will be jailed in the state of Guanajuato and the investigation continues.

Also Friday, Mexico’s interior minister said that on the night Guzman escaped, it took 18 minutes for guards to arrive at his cell after they lost sight of him on surveillance video.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the guards’ response time contributed to his July 11
escape from the facility west of Mexico City.

SEE ALSO: Kourtney, Kim, Khloe & Rob Kardashian cast in ‘American Crime Story’

“That is part of what the attorney general’s office is looking at — if the protocols were fulfilled in the correct times,” Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said at a news conference.

Guzman, Mexico’s most notorious drug lord, slipped through a hole under the shower in his cell and escaped through a mile-long tunnel to freedom, authorities said.

‘El Chapo’ escape shines spotlight on corruption in Mexico

Guzman’s cell was videotaped 24 hours a day. But the surveillance had two blind spots for privacy — the toilet and the shower.

Closed-circuit video from July 11 shows him going to the shower fully clothed twice and bending down behind a wall. After the second time, he never resurfaced in the cell.

It’s likely prison workers helped Guzman break out, the interior minister said this week. Osorio Chong said he has already fired the prison director and other prison officials.

Mexican authorities announced a $3.8 million reward for information leading to Guzman’s capture.

Nicknamed “Shorty” for his height, Guzman already had pulled off one elaborate escape from a maximum-security prison. In 2001, he managed to break free while reportedly hiding in a laundry cart. It took authorities 13 years to catch him — closing in as he was sleeping at a Mexican beach resort.