CCTV footage shows El Chapo escape in Mexico

Infamous drug kingpin El Chapo remains on the loose after his dramatic escape from a maximum security Mexican prison.

This isn’t Guzman’s first prison escape.

He said the blind spot in the cell’s shower existed “for human rights reasons to respect intimacy”.

As authorities hunted Monday for any sign of Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, it was clear that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s escape must have involved inside help on a grand scale.

Guzman had a bracelet that monitored his every move, the interior minister said. That begins at 13 minutes and 47 seconds.

Guzman is now the focus of a massive manhunt and the Mexican government announced it is offering a 60 million peso (£2.5m) reward for information leading to his capture.

“In previous tunnels designed for the Sinaloa cartel, pulley systems were used to remove dirt and transport the merchandise”, Malcolm Beith, the author of The Last Narco: The Hunt For El Chapo, The World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord, told me.

Two Federal Police officers stand next to a patrol auto with a picture of fugitive drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s on its window, in Acapulco, Guerrero State, Mexico, on Tuesday.

The moment guards noticed that Guzman was gone, they issued a red alert via radio and the prison was placed on lockdown, Rubido said.

Government officials have maintained that the prison meets the highest worldwide security standards. The man-made escape route is about one mile in length, with a height of 5 feet and lies 30 feet below the prison grounds.

In response to the AP’s reporting, Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said at a news conference Monday night that his government had not seen a copy of the DEA report. Guzman would have traversed the mile-long tunnel on either a specially modified motorcycle or one of two carts pushed along steel rails.

“They had something or a lot to do with what happened, and that’s why we made that decision”, he said. “This is a very sophisticated operation”, said Alonzo Pena, a former senior official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But Guzman was behind bars barely 16 months. Floors that meet cell regulations might have hindered the drug linchpin’s escape, but is is uncertain as to whether thicker, reinforced floors alone could have entirely prevented the escape.

At the other end he climbed several ladders and emerged into a construction site. The air quality may have even tested by a bird, nicknamed “El Chapito,” which was found in Guzman’s cell wastebasket; the bird also could have been a symbol for El Chapo to escape. Mexican officials captured him in Mazatlan in February 2014 and locked him up in a high-security facility 50 miles west of Mexico City – opting against extraditing him to the United States.