Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as “El Chapo Guzman” and the head of the notorious Sinaloa cartel, easily escaped from a Mexican prison this week in what came as little surprise to law enforcement officials on either side of the border. His first escape in 2001 was from a similar, so-called maximum-security prison. The Mexican government does not appear overly surprised about the escape and the U.S. government is speaking softly about the enormous insult that Guzman’s supposedly undiscovered tunnel represents.
Guzman’s latest arrest was in February 2014 in the beach resort city of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. In that case he was caught while attempting to flee from his safe house through a labyrinth of tunnels that had been painstakingly prepared in anticipation of the need to avoid capture. Even though his arrest was hailed as a tremendous achievement for the Enrique Peña-Nieto administration, former and current DEA officials openly feared that Mexico’s government would allow Guzman to escape in a matter of time. In an interview just after his arrest, retired DEA Agent Phil Jordan told CNN interviewers that “If he does not get extradited, then he will be allowed to escape within a period of time.”[1] Not only did Jordan’s prediction come true but intelligence provided by DEA to the Mexican government in March 2014, just one month after his capture, reported that the Sinaloa cartel had immediately begun working on getting Guzman out of prison. The intelligence was ignored, particularly because the Peña-Nieto administration loathes the DEA and their presence in Mexico, thus rarely cooperates with the agency.[2]
Chapo Guzman would be better known as The Tunnel Rat. The Sinaloa cartel is well known for excavating dozens of tunnels found along the U.S.-Mexico border for the past three decades. Tunnels attributed to Guzman have all been described as sophisticated, well-built, lighted and ventilated and containing railcar systems and many more advanced features. While not all can be attributed to the Sinaloa cartel, the U.S. Border Patrol has reported finding at least 75 tunnels along the border since 2008.[3] On a broader scale, U.S. authorities a few years later found over 150 underground excavations beneath the border that were under some form of construction.[4]
With proven tunneling know-how and limitless finances at his disposal, Guzman’s escape using a similarly built tunnel should not come as a surprise to anyone. It makes a mockery of the Mexico’s government, particularly the Mexican prison system, and defines Mexican “maximum security” as a Mexican oxymoron. Within a day of Guzman’s escape, the Mexico’s interior minister fired Valentin Cardenas, the warden in charge of the prison where Chapo was interned. Cardenas is a convenient scapegoat who allows the government to wash its hands clean of the embarrassment. With Chapo’s escape, the PRI political party and the Peña-Nieto administration will have borne out the suspicion that they would prove to be the same incessantly corrupt party they have always been. As one DEA intelligence colleague in Houston recently stated: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
The corrupt acts of the PRI may have the unintended consequence of opening the field for the PAN and independent parties for the new “sexenio” starting in 2018. Just last month, on June 7, 2015, in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon, Jaime Rodriguez Calderon, an independent candidate for governor, was elected to the statehouse.[5] The fact that the Nuevo Leon electorate has broken away from choosing candidates from only one of the traditional two parties demonstrates that the public has grown weary of the corruption that has dominated the political process in Mexico for decades.
U.S.-Mexico security relations, particularly at the operational level, will be further degraded by Guzman’s escape. Since taking office, the Peña-Nieto administration has largely frozen the Merida Initiative, bringing U.S.-Mexico public safety assistance and the reforms brought by such cooperation, to a near halt. The end result is apparent and clearly demonstrates that the government of Mexico has little interest in judicial reform or reduction of violence, both issues that are critical to the bilateral relationship and to the overall safety of Mexico’s people.
[1] CNN, “After years on run, Sinaloa cartel chief ‘El Chapo’ Guzman arrested,” February 22, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/22/world/americas/mexico-cartel-chief-arrest/index.html.
[2] Off-the-record conversations in July 2015 with DEA Agents who wish to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to discuss this investigation publicly.
[3] Fox News Latino, “The border patrol uncovers sophisticated drug tunnel on U.S.-Mexico border,” April 29, 2015, http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2015/04/29/border-patrol-uncovers-sophisticated-drug-tunnel-on-us-mexico-border/.
[4] A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border, U.S. Congressional Committee on Homeland Security, November 15, 2012, http://homeland.house.gov/sites/homeland.house.gov/files/11-15-12-Line-in-the-Sand.pdf.
[5] USA Today, “Mexico election a victory for independent ‘El Bronco,” June 8, 2015, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/06/08/mexico-elections-el-bronco/28697987/.
Gary J. Hale is the nonresident fellow in drug policy and Mexico Studies at the Baker Institute. From 2000 to 2010, he was chief of intelligence in the Houston Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
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