MEXICAN: El Chapo Moved To Mexico’s Lowest-Rated Federal Prison

Officials said the drug lord was moved so security can be reinforced at Altiplano prison.

Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been moved to Mexico’s lowest-rated federal prison. But a local governor insists the country’s most notorious criminal and two-time escapee is not about to stage yet another escape.

El Chapo was suddenly moved on Saturday morning from Altiplano—Mexico’s highest-security prison and the jail he escaped from via an underground tunnel in July last year. He was sent to Cefereso No. 9, which was rated the worst among Mexico’s federal prisons in a 2015 quality report from the country’s National Human Rights Commission.

Cefereso No. 9 is located in Ciudad Juarez, a city near El Paso, and it sits in a region that is a stronghold of El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel, the country’s most infamous drug cartel.

El Chapo, who was put back in prison after his capture in January, was moved so work could be done to “reinforce security” at Altiplano prison, located west of Mexico City, according to reports. Mexico’s interior ministry also said it regularly moves prisoners between facilities as part of a policy introduced last year after El Chapo’s escape from Altiplano.

“The decision of having him brought here is because there will not be any escape,” said Gov. Cesar Duarte of Chihuahua state, where Cefereso No. 9 is located. A Mexican security official sayed El Chapo is being held in a maximum-security wing at the prison and is monitored via camera 24-hours a day.

But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said the prison is less secure than the Altiplano facility.

Cefereso No. 9 received a score of 6.63 out of 10 in a report last year by the Mexican government’s National Human Rights Commission, making it the lowest-rated prison out of 21 federal facilities. The prison received low marks on the issue of guaranteeing prisoners a “dignified” stay, and average marks for ensuring prisoners’ well-being and safety. Like many Mexican prisons, it also suffers from overcrowding.

Altiplano prison, by comparison, came in as the 10th best in the report, scoring 7.32.

El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, made his high-profile escape from Altiplano prison last July via a tunnel that led from the shower of his cell to a construction site almost a mile away. The tunnel was equipped with lighting and a motorcycle on rails that was likely used to move dirt out of the passage. He had earlier escaped from another facility in 2001.