The Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán story is proving very popular around the world as onlookers gawk at just how he managed to fashion one of the greatest escapes in modern prison history.

Just to quickly catch everyone up to speed, drug kingpin El Chapo managed to slip through a grill in the prison showers before making his way down a long shaft into a specially created escape tunnel. He then used a motorbike to roar off into the sunset.

The video above gives us a good illustration of how well orchestrated the whole affair was, with the quotes below from Pablo Escobar’s former chief henchman courtesy of the Daily Mail:

…known as ‘Popeye’, [the man] said that tunnelling out of maximum security prison is very difficult without the complicity of at least some of the guards, who are equipped with highly sensitive sonar equipment that will pick up any mining activity.

‘You have to buy off the guards if you want to have a chance’, said the cartel killer. ‘And they know how rich he is, they’ll have asked for tens of millions of dollars’.

‘El Chapo probably paid around 50 million in bribes alone’.

That’s it mate, throw money at the problem and you can solve just about anything. If you like the song in the video up top spare a thought for Lupillo Rivera, the man who sung it. Below from SD Tribune:

While narcocorridos songs can be sympathetic to the brutal drug-trade kingpins they chronicle, singing them can be dangerous. Since 2006, at least 50 narcocorridos musicians have been shot in Mexico and performances by some narcocorridos performers have been banned in parts of Mexico, including in Tijuana.

Talk about risking life and limb for your art.

El Chapo remains at large and if these pictures are to be believed he is enjoying life on the outside.

[sources:dailymail&sdtribune]