MEXICO CITY: Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has escaped from a maximum-security prison outside Mexico City, the government said Sunday, his second jail break in 14 years.
The kingpin was last spotted by security cameras in the shower area of the Altiplano prison, 90 kilometers west of the capital, on Saturday night before disappearing, the National Security Commission said.
An alarm was issued after "he was not visible" for a while and "the escape of Guzman was confirmed," the commission said in a statement.
"An operation to locate him was deployed in the area and on roads of neighbouring states," it said, adding that flights were suspended at the nearby Toluca airport.
His first escape from prison was in 2001, when he slipped past authorities by hiding in a laundry cart.
Marines finally recaptured Guzman in February 2014 in a pre-dawn raid in a condo in Mazatlan, a Pacific resort in Sinaloa state.
Guzman was considered the world's most wanted drug lord, whose Sinaloa cartel shipped narcotics across the globe.
