New Leaked Surveillance Footage of El Chapo's Escape Reveals Officials Lied About It
In a scene not unlike Shawshank Redemption, banging noises can be heard from a prison cell while a blaring television (not quite as dramatic as thunder) vaguely drowns out the hammering sound.
Unlike the film, however, the inmate involved is unquestionably guilty. He is none other than Joaquin Guzman, known more commonly as "El Chapo," and his notorious escape July 11 from the Altiplano maximum-security prison in Mexico can be seen in surveillance footage leaked to Televisa, made public Wednesday.
While the Mexican government released edited footage on July 15 of his escape, it contained no audio and was shorter than the leaked video. The audio is perhaps the most compelling as it reveals the hammering sound, which was potentially ignored.
El Chapo can be seen pacing back and forth before bending down to tend to the recently created hole in his shower floor.
He then returns to his bed, where he appears to be putting on his shoes before walking back to his shower and disappearing into the night.
Government officials have previously maintained that guards responded to El Chapo's cell 18 minutes after he disappeared, when they first realized he had escaped.
The leaked footage, which also includes video of the surveillance room, shows the guards did not point out his cell was empty until 25 minutes after the escape and responded to it almost 30 minutes after El Chapo disappears down his shower hole. Even then, officials did not go into his cell to investigate until 37 minutes had passed.
Thus far, officials have been able to track the route and method of El Chapo's escape, which reportedly cost up to $50 million in bribes and execution. He climbed down the hole in his cell floor to a tunnel with a motorcycle on a specially designed track, which he rode for about one mile before he arrived at a nearby house.
The government is "lying and hiding information," Alejandro Encinas, an opposition senator and a' bicameral security committee member of Congress, said, according to Agence France-Presse.
More than 12 arrests have been made in association with the bungle, a massive embarrassment to the government; arrests have taken place at every level, from prison guards to the man running the Mexican penitentiary system.
