Sneaking through the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental trying to evade the bullets of rivals and the Mexican Armed Forces was for more than a decade the strategy that Joaquin El Chapo Guzman adopted to remain a fugitive from the authorities after escape for the first time in 2001 from the prison of Big Bridge in Jalisco.
In those years, the nascent Sinaloa Cartel He shipped tons of narcotics by air and sea across the northern border, but the business eventually took off with a new method that earned its co-founder the nickname “El Lord of the Tunnels.
And in various border areas that were under the yoke of the criminal organization, El Chapo He saw in the subsoil the opportunity to Cross drug shipments with minimal risk if detected.
With a group of engineers and workers at their service, those tunnels were adapted with electric power and the necessary resources to carry out the Shipping narcotics to the United StatesHowever, over the years and miles away, the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel also turned them into your best escape route.
The network of ‘El Chapo’s’ tunnels in Culiacán
“I recognize the work of the Mexican State security institutions to to achieve the apprehension of Joaquin Guzman Loera in Mazatlán,” was the message with which the former president Enrique Pena Nieto reported on the second capture of the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel that occurred on February 22, 2014.
El Chapo He was arrested by elements of the Navy (Semar) inside apartment 401 of the complex condominiums Miramar Located at number 608 on Avenida de Mar in the port of Sinaloa.
At the time of his capture, Joaquín Guzmán Loera was in the company of his wife Emma Coroneltheir two little girls and two other women identified as the family nanny and cook.
According to a report by Patrick Radden Keefe and published in the magazine The New Yorkerit was the signal from a mobile device that led a group of sailors to the Exact location of where the Sinaloa drug lord was hidingThat deployment was part of Operation Gargoyle, which was launched in Sinaloa with the sole objective of apprehending him.
Just nine days before the then most wanted drug trafficker in the world was captured, Semar elements managed to apprehend a group of gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel on the outskirts of Culiacán, whom They confiscated their cell phones.
Intelligence work carried out on mobile devices allowed marines and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to confirm that El Chapo I had been out of the depths of the mountains for months and was under the protection of his security force.
One of the members of said entourage who was also a personal assistant and messenger of El Chapo was identified as Mario Hidalgo Arguelloa Mexican special forces veteran who became better known as The Nose within the ranks of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Hidalgo Argüello accompanied Joaquín Guzmán Loera to each and every one of the houses in Culiacán where he used to hide until the February 16, 2014 when The Nose He was intercepted by an armed Navy commando in his own home.
That night, according to Patrick Radden Keefe’s news report, El Chapo He was hiding in a house in the capital of Sinaloa which belonged to his second wife, Griselda Lopezwhose location was provided by Mario Hidalgo Argüello himself to the authorities.
Without wasting any more time and with their weapons ready, the sailors arrived at a Two-story house located on Río Humaya Street of the Libertad colony, however, when trying to enter they came across a door modified to be impenetrable. To the authorities It took them just over 10 minutes to take it down.just enough time for, once again, El Chapo escaped.
There was no trace of any person in that address of Culiacan. The only thing that the Semar and DEA agents were able to find was the tub in a bathroom on the ground floor that had been raised from its base with a hydraulic lift to discover the entrance of a tunnel.
As authorities attempted to enter Griselda Lopez’s home, El Chapo and one of his bodyguards slipped away through that underground path that connected to the sewer network from Culiacan.
While some sailors followed the tunnel through which they escaped, others on the surface deployed at different points in the city, alert to the capo’s exit through one of the drains surrounding the area. All efforts were insufficient, Joaquin Guzman Loera had escaped.
“Between February 13 and 17, some addresses where he used to be were located, what made the arrest difficult is that he was connected by tunnels to seven houses located not only by tunnels but also using the city’s own drainage“, declared the former head of the then Attorney General’s Office (PGR), Jesus Murillo Karamonce that El Chapo He was arrested for the second time in Mazatlán.
El Chapo He tried to replicate his feat of escaping through the sewer system during the operation that the Armed Forces launched to capture him for the third and last time in Los Mochis, Sinaloa in January 2016 after having escaped months before from the El Altiplano prison.
Although on that occasion the luck of the co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel ran out and he was finally imprisoned and extradited to the United States, Their steps have followed them closely Not only his children leading the Los Chapitos faction but also some of his closest bosses who have also found in the underground the opportunity to evade arrest.
The escape of ‘El 27’ in Culiacán
On September 9, 2024, one of the strongest disputes in recent years broke out in Culiacán, Sinaloa after Ismael Zambada Sicairosalias The Skinny Mayitodeclared war on Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar.
Both the son of The May Zambada as the heirs of the criminal empire of El Chapo have become The capital of Sinaloa is a battlefield where homicides, armed confrontations, kidnappings and blockades have become part of daily life.
The situation forced the federal government to deploy dozens of members of the Armed Forces to locate and arrest the entity’s generators of violencewith the security chiefs of both factions becoming priority targets.
One of the first blows that the authorities managed to secure against the security force of Los Chapitos occurred on September 19 when Mario Alexander “N” was arrestedalias The PiyiHowever, just two days later the operations were deployed again in Culiacán, this time with the objective of apprehending Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benitezalias The 27th.
The authorities’ proceedings were carried out in the urban development three rivers from the capital of Sinaloa, where they were received with armed attacks that left five people dead, three civilians and two soldiers.
According to information provided by the journalist Luis Chaparro announced through his account Xthe armed confrontation was orchestrated by subordinates of Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benítez with the purpose of give him time to escape from arrest.
Figueroa escaped from the hotel through a sewer. His people stayed to help him flee. MX special forces still sweeping Culiacan searching for him. An insider gave the exact location to government sources for his capture of him. https://t.co/8gUu7f6Gfw
— Luis Chaparro (@LuisKuryaki) September 22, 2024
The communicator explained that it was an informant who provided government forces with the exact location where from The 27th was hiding: a hotel in Culiacan whose windows were covered with aluminum foil, making it impossible to see inside.
Despite the intense operation of the Armed Forces,The lieutenant of Los Chapitos managed to sneak through one of the sewers on the propertyjust as in previous years he managed to escape El Chapo Guzman.
Military and state law enforcement continued to search for The Perris On the surface, therefore, next to Oscar Noah Medina Gonzalez –Bread-, appear within the criminal organization of Los Chapitos as its last fugitive security chiefs, a state that could change at any moment in the face of the dispute that its leaders are waging with The Skinny Mayito and with American security agencies as well hot on their heels.
ATJ
