UPDATE: Ten prison guards are being questioned about their alleged involvement in helping the three men escape from the medium-security prison. The fugitives passed through five gates to get to the prison courtyard where they escaped in a getaway car waiting nearby.
— —
Three cartel members associated with kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped a Mexican prison while facing extradition to the United States.
The three were part of Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel, and includes Victor Manuel Felix Beltran, the head of finance for the cartel’s operations. He was joined in his escape by Luis Fernando Meza Gonzalez and Yael Osuna Navarro, both members of the deadly crime syndicate.
The Mexican government confirmed the escape from South Men’s Preventative Prison on Wednesday, although it did not say how the three men were able to flee the facility.
Guzman, 62, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for drug charges, is known for two Mexican prison breaks. In the first escape, he left in a laundry cart, and, in the second escape, he fled in an intricate, mile-long tunnel that spanned from his prison cell to a construction site.
Beltran, known as “Lic Vicc,” was indicted in Chicago federal court in 2009 on drug distribution and money laundering charges. He was arrested in Mexico in 2017. The Treasury Department has described Beltran as a “high-ranking Sinaloa cartel trafficker.”
