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Video Retraces El Chapo's Elaborate Escape Route
Footage has been released showing the intricate underground escape route that Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman used to make his break out of prison over the weekend, so he could kick back and enjoy a beer in peace. The Mexican government also released a video that shows Guzman just moments before he made his Great Escape (though skeptics are not convinced!).
In the moments before he made his break, footage showed Guzman pacing his cell and periodically checked the shower floor, which had a slab of concrete that hid his escape route. Video released in his final moments in prison shows him ducking down into the shower, the only place where Guzman had any privacy from surveillance cameras, one last time before he was off.
It took 30 minutes for prison officials to issue a code red after Guzman slipped away—far too long given that he was under 24 hour surveillance.
A reporter was allowed to bring a camera into his cell and retrace Guzman's steps. A motorcycle rigged to two carts awaited Guzman once he ducked under the floor of his shower. The Associated Press describes what likely happened next this way:
Guzman either rode on the bike or in one of the carts for a mile (1.5 kilometers) in the dirt tunnel built just high enough for a man called "Shorty" to stand without hitting his head. When he reached the other end, he climbed a wooden ladder through a large, wood-framed shaft with a winch overhead that had been used to drop construction supplies into the tunnel. After pulling himself up 17 rungs, he reached a small basement, where a blue power generator the size of a compact car provided the electricity to illuminate and pump oxygen into the underground escape route. From there, Guzman walked to a shorter ladder and climbed one, two, three steps as the air thinned and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. As Guzman's head poked above the dirt floor, he climbed three more rungs to stand inside the unfinished bodega built to hide the elaborate scheme.
Here's the full footage of the crazy escape route:
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