Mexico City, July 14 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Mexico's Attorney General Arely Gomez Monday announced a $4 million reward for information leading to Sinaloa drug cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman's arrest.
The high-level official told reporters that the information needs to be “useful, truthful and timely” and aid in efficiently arresting Guzman, who on Saturday escaped one of Mexico's most secure jails.
This was Chapo Guzman's second jailbreak, according to authorities. However, in 2001, according to new evidence, the drug lord walked out the front door of the Puente Grande maximum security jail in Jalisco.
Mexican media accused then President Vicente Fox of allowing his supposed escape.
Gomez showed reporters a recent photo of Guzman. She told members of the press that 34 Almoloya de Juarez prison employees were in detention rendering testimony in connection with drug lord’s escape.
The Attorney General added that the legal status of the 34 detainees is yet to be determined, and said that 17 inmates whose cells were near to Guzman's were also being questioned.
Two major U.S. media outlets said that the DEA had warned the Mexican government that El Chapo's escape was being planned, although they admitted they had no idea how he would carry out the jailbreak. The DEA knew that one of El Chapo's many sons, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman, had hired military experts to plan the drug trafficker's escape, according to U.S. news agency AP and the Wall Street Journal.
Mexican magazine Proceso reported that five other inmates escaped with Guzman through the mile-long tunnel, which was built with high-tech equipments. Unidentified police sources told Proceso the five other escapees were Guzman's bodyguards.
Information regarding where the prison side of the tunnel actually is remains unclear. How the thick walls and floors of the prison, which are reinforced with a massive double-steel-bar structure, where perforated is also still a mystery.
Proceso's account of five other prison inmates escaping is practically impossible to believe, because in Mexico's maximum security jails convicts are not allowed to mingle or be in groups. When they leave their cells they are escorted by at least two guards and they are not permitted to talk to other inmates.
