Mexico searches nationwide for escaped drug lord
Jul 15, 2015, 7:36 PM
Federal Police stand guard near a half-built house near the Altiplano maximum security prison in Almoloya, west of Mexico City, Monday, July 13, 2015. A widespread manhunt that included highway checkpoints, stepped up border security and closure of an international airport failed to turn up any trace of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman by Monday, more than 24 hours after he escaped through an underground tunnel leading from his Altiplano prison cell's shower area. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities have distributed 100,000 photographs of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to highway toll booths since his weekend escape from a maximum security prison, the interior ministry announced Wednesday.
A ministry statement outlined actions taken so far.
It said 10,000 agents of various components of the federal police remain on high alert across Mexico and authorities have established 101 checkpoints on major highways throughout the country
Hospitals, hotels and funeral homes are being checked. Forty-eight canine teams are searching passenger and cargo vehicles. Airports are on alert, closely reviewing passengers on private planes.
Guzman is once again Mexico’s most wanted criminal since he escaped late Saturday through a mile-long tunnel dug to come up under the shower of his prison cell.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico said Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador Anthony Wayne had met with Mexican Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong the previous day to discuss how the two countries could cooperate to recapture Guzman.
A Mexican government official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said representatives of the FBI and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration met with Mexican officials in the capital Monday to discuss the search for Guzman.
DEA documents obtained by The Associated Press on Monday showed that U.S. agents had seen signs that work on plotting Guzman’s escape began almost immediately after his arrest in February 2014.
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