How is the maximum security prison where they took Ovidio Guzmán: his father, “El Chapo”, has already escaped from there

After being captured Thursday by Mexican authorities in the midst of a violent operation in the city of Culiacán in northwest Mexico, Ovidio Guzmán was transferred by helicopter to the maximum security prison El Altiplano, the same from which his father, detained drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, went on the run in 2015.

The Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation Number 1 “El Altiplano”popularly known as Almoloya, is a federal prison located in Villa de Almoloya de Juárez, 90 kilometers from Mexico City.

It was built in 1991 to house the most notorious drug traffickers in the country and has a capacity of 720 inmates.

It has electromechanical and electronic systems and equipment such as closed circuit television, access control, alarms, metal detectors, drugs and explosives, radio communication, voice and data, presence sensors and telephony.

Its walls are reinforced and are about a meter thick.

Moreover, the airspace around the venue is limitedwhile communications are interrupted in a perimeter of 10 kilometers.

According to a report by BBC Worldthe center occupies an area of ​​approximately 260,000 m2, of which nearly 28,000 are prison facilities.

The fortress that lost its prestige after the escape of Chapo Guzmán

The Altiplano has always had the reputation of being an impregnable fortress and the pride of being Mexico’s maximum security prison. However, all that prestige was ruined on July 11, 2015, when “El Chapo” Guzmán became the first prisoner in that prison to escape.

The drug lord, who had been locked up in that prison for 17 months, escaped through a tunnel The one that connected to the shower in his cell, number 20, was 1.5 kilometers long. It had ventilation, lighting and even a motorized vehicle to move faster.

According to the testimony of El Licenciado López, it was Emma Coronel, the wife of El Chapo, the mastermind behind the leak. Coronel was allegedly the one who carried her husband’s instructions to cartel members to coordinate the escape. The plan: dig a tunnel.

Emma, ​​​​together with her husband’s three sons, Iván, Alfredo and Ovidio, allegedly bought a house under construction located southwest of the prison, in the Santa Juanita neighborhood, which is surrounded by wheat fields. There the work and the “rescue” operation would begin.

The first step was to get Guzmán a watch with GPS to detect the exact location of his cell. And as those years wore on, Ovid was already preparing to be the one who would one day be the one to run the Sinaloa Cartel with his father’s blessing.

The tunnel was 1.70 meters high, between 70 and 80 centimeters wide. and an extension of 1,500 meters until ending in Guzmán’s cell cubicle which was used as a shower and blind spot for security cameras. Human rights conventions prevent a camera from monitoring the intimate moments or hygienic points of detainees.

At 8:00 pm that Saturday, Guzmán received his medication, walked around his cell, changed his shoes, and squatted down where he washed. Ed disappeared through a 50cm hole, once again his size was the key to achieving escape. In the tunnel there was a ventilation and lighting system.

And a motorcycle mounted on rails so that the getaway was quick. As he passed through the mile and a half of the tunnel, El Chapo was break the lights to avoid getting caught when they persecuted him, but only three hours later the prison authorities would retrace the drug lord’s escape route.

Guzmán arrived at the exit where his brother-in-law was waiting for him in a four-wheel drive truck and from there he was transferred to a clandestine runway where a small plane was waiting for him which took him to Sinaloa.

Six months after the escape, in January 2016, El Chapo was captured for the third time in the city of Los Mochis, Sinaloa. On January 8, the then Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto confirmed this on Twitter. Then came the negotiations with the United States, the extradition and the trial in which Mexico’s most famous drug trafficker was sentenced to life imprisonment.