0:00
Mexico called Altiplano the safest
0:02
prison in the country. 750 cameras, 26
0:07
checkpoints, a cell in the hardest wing.
0:10
On the night of July 11th, 2015, Joaquin
0:14
"El Chapo" Guzmán Loera walked into the
0:16
shower in that cell. The camera kept
0:18
running. He did not come back. That is
0:21
not a legend. That is the tape the
0:23
government released. He had already done
0:25
this once. January 19th, 2001. Puente
0:30
Grande, another maximum security lockup,
0:34
this one in Jalisco. The official story
0:36
that stuck was a laundry cart. A
0:39
maintenance worker later told a judge he
0:41
hid Guzmán under boards and blankets and
0:44
pushed him through doors that should not
0:46
have been open. 71 people were detained
0:49
over that night. Some journalists say
0:51
the cart was cover and that he walked
0:54
out in a uniform instead. Either version
0:57
ends the same way. The most wanted
0:59
trafficker in Mexico was gone for 13
1:02
years. They caught him again in Mazatlán
1:05
in February 2014. The Peña Nieto
1:08
government treated it as a trophy. The
1:11
United States asked for extradition.
1:13
Mexico said not yet. They put him in
1:16
Altiplano, west of Mexico City, and said
1:19
this time would be different. It was
1:21
not. Investigators later described what
1:24
they found under the shower. A hole, a
1:27
shaft, a tunnel that ran about a mile to
1:30
an unfinished house in a nearby town.
1:34
Lighting, air pipes, a motorcycle on
1:37
rails that they said had been used to
1:39
move dirt. They estimated a job like
1:41
that would normally take a year or two.
1:44
Satellite pictures showed work on the
1:46
house after his 2014 capture. Prison
1:49
staff were detained. The interior
1:52
secretary said the breach was obvious
1:54
and that it required help from inside.
1:57
That is the part that matters more than
1:59
the whole. Concrete does not open
2:01
itself. The camera in the cell shows the
2:04
last 2 minutes. He sits on the bunk. He
2:07
changes shoes. He steps behind the low
2:10
shower wall. 8:52 p.m. empty frame. They
2:14
hunted him for 6 months. In October, he
2:17
sat down with the actress Kate del
2:19
Castillo and the actor Sean Penn. A
2:22
meeting that later exploded into a media
2:25
circus and did not help him stay hidden.
2:28
On January 8th, 2016, Mexican marines
2:32
hit a house in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.
2:35
People died in that raid. Guzman fled
2:38
into the drains, stole a car, and was
2:41
pulled off a highway toward Navahoa.
2:43
They flew him back to Altiplano in
2:45
handcuffs and turned his face to the
2:48
cameras so the country could see they
2:51
This time Mexico did not keep him. He
2:53
was extradited to the United States in
2:58
In February 2019, a Brooklyn jury
3:00
convicted him on drug, murder
3:03
conspiracy, and money laundering counts
3:06
after a 3-month trial. In July, the
3:08
judge gave him life plus 30 years and
3:11
ordered $12.6 billion in forfeiture.
3:15
Within 2 days, he was at ADX Florence in
3:18
Colorado, the federal supermax they call
3:21
the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Concrete.
3:24
One window slit. 23 hours in a cell. His
3:28
name is still on the roster there. Here
3:30
is what the two escapes actually prove
3:33
and what they do not.
3:34
They do not prove he was a genius
3:36
engineer. They prove an organization
3:39
that could buy time, by silence, and by
3:41
access. And a state that could not keep
3:44
those things sold. The first break was a
3:47
door problem. The second was a year of
3:49
digging next to the most watched cell in
3:52
Mexico, and nobody in authority stopped
3:55
it in time. That is not a magic trick.
3:58
That is a failure with a body count
4:00
attached. The Sinaloa trade he ran
4:03
helped drown towns in killings. The Los
4:06
Mochis raid added more. The myth is the
4:09
man in the tunnel. The record is the
4:11
people who opened the doors and the
4:13
people who never came home. He is not
4:16
coming out of Florence the way he came
4:18
out of Altiplano. The United States
4:20
built that prison for men they do not
4:23
intend to lose. If this story leaves you
4:26
thinking about the lives that ended
4:27
around him, that part is not
4:30
entertainment. Scripture is blunt that
4:32
violence returns a harvest. Jesus said
4:36
the thief comes to steal and kill and
4:38
destroy, and that he came so people
4:41
could have life. The invitation is still
4:43
the same as it was the night Guzmán
4:46
vanished. Turn around. Ask to be saved.
4:50
The tunnel does not get you out of that.
