The Moment El Chapo Escaped From Prison

Newly-released surveillance video shows Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman before his escape from his prison cell – after which he traveled to freedom through a mile-long, highly sophisticated tunnel.

In the surveillance footage recorded Saturday, Guzman can be seen pacing back and forth.

He then walks to the shower and toilet area of his cell, bends down behind a low dividing wall, and vanishes.

Guzman successfully dodged two surveillance cameras – one mounted outside his cell’s entrance, the other a closed-circuit lens inside. Mexican officials concede that the drug lord exploited the obvious blind spot, his shower stall, which was deliberately set up to protect the inmate’s privacy.

He also removed a tracking bracelet prior to the escape.

Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo
PHOTO: A journalist climbs a ladder to get out of the tunnel that according to authorities, drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman used to escape from the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya, west of Mexico City, July 14, 2015.

ABC News’ Gio Benitez got a look inside the tunnel used in the escape. The tunnel, ventilated and well-lit, was built to accommodate Guzman’s height – 5-foot 6 – and runs nearly a mile underground, from the shower stall to a half-built house used to hide the dirt pulled out of the ground to make the tunnel. The house was under construction for about six months, local gas deliverymen said.

A deeper portion of the tunnel featured an adapted motorcycle on rails.

Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo
PHOTO: A motorcycle adapted to a rail sits in the tunnel under the half-built house where according to authorities, drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman made his escape from the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya, Mexico, July 14, 2015.

The escape happened during a roughly 50 minute gap between the time when a prison guard gave him his daily medicine, to the moment when he was no longer visible on the internal video camera system, according to the Mexican national security commission.

United States authorities say Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel provides a quarter of the drugs in the United States.

Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo
PHOTO: Yellow police tape surrounds the construction site authorities say was used by drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to break out of the Altiplano maximum security prison, in Almoloya, west of Mexico City, July 14, 2015.

Guzman also escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico in 2011. He was last captured on Feb. 22, 2014.

A nearly $4 million reward is being offered for his capture, and three prison officials have lost their jobs following Guzman’s escape.

Source: ABC News – Top Stories The Moment El Chapo Escaped From Prison

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