Ten prison officers probed after top cartel financier and two key lieutenants linked to Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman escape from jail after making their way through FIVE locked doors
- Three senior Sinaloa cartel bosses escaped from a Mexican high security jail
- Prison officials claim the three men had inside help to get through five gates
- Victor Felix Beltran, known as ‘el Vic’ dealt with finance for El Chapo’s sons
- El Vic and the two other cartel members were facing extradition to the US
Ten prison staff are being investigated by Mexican authorities after a cartel financier and two of his lieutenants liked to Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman escaped from jail having walked through five locked doors.
Victor Felix Beltran, known as ‘El Vic’ escaped with Luis Meza and Yael Osuna from the high security jail on the south side of Mexico City on Wednesday.
El Vic is believed to have managed the finances of El Chapo’s children, who themselves are known as Los Chapitos.
Victor Felix Beltran – known as ‘El Vic’ – managed the finances of Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s children before his arrest. He escaped from jail along with two associates
Luis Meza, pictured, also walked out of the high security prison yesterday
They were joined on the run by Yael Osuna, pictured. All three were facing extradition to the United States on drugs and organised crime charges
The three cartel members escaped from the high security Reclusorio Sur prison in Mexico City on Wednesday. The men made their way through five locked doors leading authorities to conclude that they had insider help
Rosa Icela Rodriguez, interior minister for the Mexico City government told reporters following the jail break: ‘The escape of an inmate from this prison cannot be carried out without the involvement of public servants.’
Deputy minister for Mexico City’s prison system Antonio Hazeal Ruiz said the three fugitives had passed through five locked doors and ten staff were suspected of helping the cartel men
El Vic and Meza are both from Culiacan, Sinaloa while Osuna is from Nayarit.
All three men were facing extradition to the United States where El Chapo is serving life imprisonment without control.
Beltran, known as “El Vic”, managed the finances of Guzman’s sons, local media reported. It was not immediately clear when the United States had submitted the request for their extradition.
Guzmans’s children, collectively known as “Los Chapitos”, enhanced their family’s near-mythical outlaw reputation last year when hundreds of heavily-armed Sinaloa Cartel henchmen poured into Culiacan to rescue one of Guzman’s detained sons, briefly taking hostage the modern city of a million people.
A major investigation has been launched following the escape from the high security facility in Mexico City
The fugitives were linked to Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman – who managed to escape from jail twice – and is now serving a life prison sentence with no parole for his role leading the Sinaloa cartel
Guzman himself escaped from two high-security prisons in Mexico but was eventually captured and extradited to the United States.
Last year, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole and moved to a high security facility in Colorado after being convicted in a U.S. court of smuggling tons of drugs to the United States over a colorful, decades-long career. (Reporting by Raul Cortes; Writing by Julia Love and Stefanie Eschenbacher Editing by Alistair Bell)