EVEN before he broke out of what was supposed to be Mexico’s most secure prison on July 11th, Joaquín Guzmán was known to be fond of tunnels. For decades his drug-trafficking organisation, based in the northern state of Sinaloa, bored tunnels to move drugs, people, money and guns across Mexico’s border with the United States. When navy special forces closed in on him last year they found a network of underground passages connecting safe houses in Culiacán, the state’s capital, via the city’s drainage system.
The gang’s subterranean masterpiece is undoubtedly the tunnel through which Mr Guzmán, also known as El Chapo (Shorty), fled little more than a year after his capture. Nearly a mile long, and high enough for the diminutive drug baron to traverse without stooping, it was equipped with ventilation tubes and a motorcycle mounted on rails, which was apparently used to haul away dirt. It led from Mr Guzmán’s jail-cell shower to a newly built house on a hill with a view of the jail and a nearby military base. The middle-aged capo raced through it, smashing light bulbs as he went. The pursuing police fumbled about in the dark....
from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1Goomot
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