(One end of a 40-meter-long tunnel used for an escape by inmates at a prison in Tamaulipas, Mexico, March 23, 2017.Milenio)
On March 17, suspected Mexican drug trafficker Juan Jose Esparragoza Monzon busted out of a prison in northwest Mexico, accompanied by four other men.
Monzon is the son of Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno, the most reclusive member of the Sinaloa cartel's triumvirate of chieftains, alongside the jailed "El Chapo" Guzman and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who remains at large.
Monzon and the four men who accompanied him — several of them cartel enforcers — are all believed to be tied to the Sinaloa cartel.
Their escape is not the most recent embarrassing incident for the Mexican prison system, however.
Late on Wednesday night, 29 inmates tunneled their way out of a jail on the other side of the country in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, the country's northeastern-most state.
The men, nine of them federal prisoners and four of them directly tied to drug trafficking, burrowed out through a passage 5 meters deep and 40 meters long. Luis Alberto Rodriguez, the state security spokesman, said the tunnel had been hidden under a hut built illegally in a part of the facility that the prisoners basically controlled.
Once they had emerged, one of them shot and killed a passing motorist in what appeared to be an attempted carjacking.
A manhunt was quickly activated, with federal, state, and military personnel securing the prison's perimeter. Twelve of the escapees have been recaptured, and, according to Rodriguez, at least 30 guards at the facility face investigations over the escape.
(Tamaulipas is one of Mexico's most violent states with 5,700 of 28,000 people who have been reported missing in the past decade.© AFP/File Ronaldo Schemidt)
The prison in question, the Center for Execution of Sanctions (Cedes) of Ciudad Victoria, is more than 40 years old, and the local government admitted that it had been "neglected in recent years" and did not have "adequate security measures," according to El País.
In recent months, authorities have struggled to keep a grip on goings-on at the prison. According to Proceso, there have been riots and fights between inmates. The prison is over capacity by 160 inmates, and authorities have been looking to transfer prisoners elsewhere.
Two months ago, a leader in the Zetas cartel was killed inside the prison two days after being detained there. The Zetas have long been present in Tamaulipas and the surrounding area, and the group's fight with other cartels for control of trafficking and other criminal activities in the region is responsible for some of Mexico's most horrific drug-war violence.