Mexico hunts drug kingpin, probes prison guards

Mexico 

Mexican security forces scrambled Monday to save face and recapture drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman as authorities investigated whether guards helped him escape prison through a tunnel under his cell.

For the second time in 14 years the head of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel managed to flee a maximum-security prison, dealing an embarrassing setback to President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Troops and police were deployed to hunt down Guzman after he vanished late Saturday from the Altiplano prison 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Mexico City, after just 17 months behind bars.

Prosecutors questioned 30 prison employees of various rank, including the warden, the attorney general's office said, signaling suspicions of an inside job.

The guards in charge of the capo's cell and those who monitored the surveillance cameras that look into the room were among those interrogated, said an official in the attorney general's office.

Authorities had already investigated a strange prison visit to Guzman in March when a woman managed to see him by using a fake ID to enter the jail.

On a state visit to Paris, Pena Nieto said Guzman's escape was "an affront to the state" and demanded an investigation into whether prison guards helped him.

Guzman, 58, who nurtured a Robin Hood image in his northwestern state of Sinaloa while running the most powerful and one of the most ruthless cartels in Mexico, was able to slip out even though surveillance cameras were trained on his cell.

He went into his private shower and after he failed to come out guards found a hole 10 meters (33 feet) deep with a ladder in it.

The gap led to a 1.5-kilometer tunnel with a ventilation and light system that was apparently dug with the help of a motorcycle mounted on a rail to transport tools and remove earth.

The sophisticated tunnel led to a gray brick building on a hill surrounded by pastures in central Mexico State.

Prosecutors released a video showing the hole inside the building's dirt-covered floor. A bed and kitchen were in the facility, indicating that people had lived there.