Mexican authorities have undertaken a desperate manhunt for former Sinaloa drug cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán after he escaped from the Altiplano maximum security prison near Mexico City. It was the second time Guzmán escaped from prison; the first was in 2001.
Guzmán had been arrested again in February 2014. As Breitbart Texas reported earlier this year, Mexican authorities had refused extradition requests by the United States, insisting that Guzmán remain in Mexico to complete his sentences, which run into several hundreds of years.
As Breitbart Texas noted at the time, Mexico’s Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam claimed the risk of Guzmán’s escape “does not exist.”
The Wall Street Journal summarized Guzmán’s career in recent years:
On the run after his 2001 escape, Mr. Guzmán rose to the top of the Sinaloa cartel, and embarked in ambitious wars with other cartels, including the Gulf and Juarez cartels. His attempts to take over Ciudad Juárez from the Juarez cartel turned the city, immediately across the border from El Paso, Texas, into a bloody battleground and cost the lives of thousands. Mr. Guzmán also tried to muscle in on Nuevo Laredo, then run by the Gulf Cartel, a move that also led to an explosion of violent deaths.
The Mexican drug cartels are blamed for much of the violence that has taken place along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. The Sinaloa cartel also has operatives deep inside the U.S., in cities as far from the border as Chicago. Lax border enforcement has helped its spread.