El Chapo’s escape from prison was branded the jailbreak of the millennium.
He was the most powerful drug trafficker in the world, and was being held at a top security
prison in mexico, but that wasn’t enough to stop el chapo from breaking out.
Chapo had friends in high places, and an army of people helping him escape.
So how did El Chapo escape from prison?
That’s the question we’re asking today on life’s biggest questions.
Hello and welcome back to life’s biggest questions, the channe that asks the fundamental
questions of life, and occasionally answers them too.
I’m charlotte dobre, hit that subscribe for more daily questions that will have you
asking more questions, and be sure to stick around until the end of the video where we
respond to some of your comments.
The drug kingpin, Joaquin guzman, aka El Chapo has actually escaped from prison twice.
June 10th, 1993, mexico announces that they have captured El Chapo in Guatemala.
He was sentenced to 20 years.
But while he was in prison, it was almost as if he was never captured in the first place.
According to actor Robert Saviano, el chapo continued to manage his affairs from prison
with scarcely a hitch.
In fact, he was using the prison as his new base of operations.
Then after a few years, in 2001, Guzman broke out of a top security jail, Puente Grande.
He supposedly escaped in a laundry truck, but apparently this might have been a myth.
El Chapo was the most powerful man in mexico.
He was also one of the richest, which meant he could buy pretty much anyone’s loyalty,
and that included officials at the jail.
According to a book by Anabel Hernandez, Guzman held Christmas parties with his extended family
within the jail for several days.
The first time, Guzman actually escaped wearing a police uniform, escorted by a policeman.
He bribed guards.
The day before, the Mexican minister of justice went to the jail to react to the break out,
which is another way of saying he knew that el chapo was going to break out of prison.
He was captured again in Mazatlan on February 22nd, 2014.
One would think that after a jailbreak like that, there was no way the Mexican government
would allow el chapo to escape again.
This time, they placed him in mexico’s top security prison, Altiplano Federal Penetentiary.
But again, Mexico’s top security prison was no match for the cunning and resourceful
El Chapo Guzman.
He escaped, a second time, on july 15th, 2015.
Coincidentally, or maybe not, Altiplano prison looks identical to the first prison el chapo
escaped from.
El chapo waited patiently for a little over a year while at Altiplanto.
He was well behaved, and his prison cell was monitored 24/7.
But this was just a front.
There was an elaborate plan unfolding literally beneath el chapo’s feet.
A prison guard gave him his daily medicine, and then somewhere in the span of 50 minutes,
el chapo was not visible on the video camera system.
At around 8:52 pm on July 15th, an alert was sent out, and guards went to his cell to find
a small opening in Guzman’s bathroom.
A security camera that was inside El Chapo’s cell revealed that he climbed down a hole
that was created in his shower.
The hole was two by two feet, and it led to an extremely intricate, extremely long tunnel.
At one mile in length, the tunnel had lighting, ventilation and a motorcycle was placed on
rails.
El chapo got onto the bike and sped along the length of the tunnel.
At the end of the tunnel, there was a construction site.
The tunnel went upward, el chapo climbed a ladder and found himself in a home that had
a small exit in the floor.
El chapo was then free, and in the neighbourhood of Santa Juanita.
So how did all of this go unnoticed?
His cell only had one security camera, and the escape hole was planned for the area of
el chapo’s cell was right in the camera’s blind spot.
And lets not forget the bribes.
There had to be some collusion of prison guards and officials for this escape to take place,
and go unnoticed.
The prime suspect in the investigation of the escape was Damaso Lopez, who was believed
to have provided blue prints of the prison before quitting his job at Puente Grande.
Again, I will remind you that both of the prisons chapo escaped from were shockingly
similar in layout.
Construction on the escape compound began after February 2014.
Satellite images show that after February 2015, the site was complete.
Workers took the dirt from the tunnel and spread it around the construction site.
Huge piles of dirt would definitely draw attention, so the workers sprinkled the dirt around on
the ground.
The escape house didn’t raise suspicion because it was on a construction site.
Normally gas would have been requested for such a house, but because it was under construction,
it wasn’t unusual.
Its estimated that the cost of the escape, including bribes and construction was around
50 million dollars.
Well there you have it.
Definitely an interesting topic, and we hope that this video has inspired you to look into
it further on your own.
For now, I’m going to wrap up this video with some featured comments from my last video,
what if the library of Alexandria was never destroyed.
Cinyx GP – finally a question that’s actually a life’s biggest question.
I detect a little bit of sass.
Git Gud – most of the information got taken to the Vatican and is hidden away.
I actually heard about this and was thinking it would be a good topic for a future video,
what do you think?
The immortal super being – what if we got a message from the Andromeda system saying,
we are coming for you?
I would be a little scared but also please take me away, I don’t want to live in the
milky way anymore.
DJ jokeez – see if Rebecca would go on a date with me charlotte she’s pretty cute.
I’ll definitely ask her for you.
Thank you for tuning in to life’s biggest questions.
To go on an LBQ binge,