Mexico drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman escapes prison again

A policeman inspecting a passenger bus at a checkpoint outside the Altiplano federal penitentiary, on the outskirts of Mexico City on July 12, 2015 a day after the second escape of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, in Almoloya de Juarez. Tomas Bravo/Reuters

Policemen inspecting a trailer at a checkpoint outside the Altiplano federal penitentiary. Tomas Bravo/Reuters

The Altiplano prison in Almoloya de Juarez, Toluca, Mexico, from where Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo Guzman escaped. Yuri Cortez/AFP Photo

Federal policemen stand outside the Altiplano prison in Almoloya de Juarez, Toluca, Mexico. Authorities have launched an operation to locate El Chapo was deployed in the area and on roads of neighbouring states. Yuri Cortez/AFP Photo

MEXICO CITY // Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has escaped from a maximum-security prison for the second time in 14 years, sparking a massive manhunt on Sunday and dealing an embarrassing blow to the government.

The kingpin was last spotted by security cameras entering the shower area of the Altiplano prison, 90 kilometres west of Mexico City, on Saturday night before disappearing, the national security commission said.

An alarm was issued after “he was not visible” for a while and his cell was empty, the commission said in the early hours of Sunday.

“An operation to locate him was deployed in the area and on roads of neighbouring states,” a statement said, adding that flights were suspended at the nearby Toluca airport.

Soldiers manned checkpoints at a toll booth of the Mexico City-Toluca highway, using flashlights to look at the faces of car passengers and searching car trunks and the backs of trucks.

The Altiplano prison in central Mexico State houses the country’s most notorious drug lords, murderers and kidnappers.

Guzman, 58, whose Sinaloa cartel shipped narcotics across the globe, was considered the world’s most wanted drug lord before his arrest.

His first break from prison was in 2001, when he slipped past authorities by hiding in a laundry cart. He had been arrested in Guatemala in 1993.

This time around, Guzman managed to give the slip after spending just 17 months in prison.

Marines had recaptured him in February 2014 in a pre-dawn raid in a condo in Mazatlan, a Pacific resort in Sinaloa state, with the help of the US drug enforcement administration.

His second escape is sure to embarrass the administration of president Enrique Pena Nieto, who was flying to France for a state visit when Guzman fled. The prison break will now certainly overshadow his trip.

Mr Pena Nieto’s government had won praise for capturing the powerful kingpin, a diminutive but feared man whose nickname means “Shorty”.

After his last capture, the government had paraded Guzman in front of television cameras, showing the mustachioed mafia boss being frogmarched by two marines before taking him to prison on a helicopter.

The US government had hailed his capture as “landmark achievement” while some US prosecutors wanted to ask for his extradition, but Mexican officials insisted on trying him first.

Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel empire stretches along Mexico’s Pacific coast and deals drugs to the United States and as far as Europe and Asia.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico since 2006.

* Agence France-Presse