Police in Mexico say the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman were likely behind a grenade attack that killed five soldiers in the country's north. They believe the ambush aimed to free a captured suspect.
Image: Reuters/J. Bustamante
Advertisement
The military convoy was escorting a wounded suspect in an ambulance when it came under armed attack on the outskirts of Culiacan in the northern state of Sinaloa early Friday.
General Alfonso Duarte told reporters that Guzman's sons were "very probably" responsible for the pre-dawn ambush. The gunmen reportedly laid in wait for the ambulance before launching their attack with grenades and high-powered guns. They left two military vehicles completely burnt out on the highway and made off with the ambulance. They also freed the suspect, identified as Julio Oscar Ortiz Vega. Five soldiers were killed, while 10 others, including a Red Cross worker, were wounded.
The assault was the worst of its kind on the military since 2015, when drug cartel gunmen in the state of Jalisco shot down an army helicopter with a rocket launcher, killing 10 people. Officials said the brutality of Friday's attack indicates the ambulance may have been carrying a high-ranking gang member.
"These groups acted with cowardice, in a premeditated manner, and carried out the attack with weapons, with grenades," while the soldiers had only automatic weapons, Duarte said.
Who replaced 'El Chapo'?
The soldiers had picked up the wounded suspect after a shootout between the army and cartel members in the mountain community of Bacacoragua, Guzman's hometown.
According to Duarte, Guzman's brother Aureliano Guzman Loera, alias "El Guano," is battling the Beltran Leyva cartel for control of drug production, including opium poppy fields, in the remote region.
Guzman led a local cartel in Sinaloa, one of Mexico's most violent states, up until his re-arrest in January. The drug kingpin was captured in the coastal city of Los Mochis six months after he escaped from a prison near Mexico City by sneaking through a tunnel in his cell's shower. He is currently in prison in Ciudad Juarez, awaiting extradition to the United States.
Some believe his sons are now running the gangand have changed the rules of engagement practiced by their father, who mostly kept a low profile. Others, however, say Guzman's longtime partner Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada is in control.
Spectacular prison breaks
Mexican drug baron "Shorty" Guzman is not the first prisoner to want to escape the thick walls, bars, guards and search lights of jail. Here are some of the most spectacular, if not always successful, prison breaks.
Image: Getty Images/New York State Governor's Office/D. McGee
Maximum security in Mexico
In July 2015, Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escaped the Altiplano prison through a tunnel under his cell's shower - the second time in 14 years that he managed to flee a maximum-security prison. Guards discovered a deep hole with a ladder that led to a tunnel that in turn led to a building on a hill surrounded by pastures.
Image: Reuters/PGR/Attorney General's Office
Nice try
Not as clever as Guzman: In 2011, the wife of inmate Juan Ramirez Tijerina visited her husband in a Mexican prison, where he was serving a sentence for illegal weapons possession. She brought along a large suitcase she planned to lug him out with again. Prison guards, however, found the young man inside - curled up inside in the fetal position.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Sspqr
H-Block 7
In 1983, 38 Irish Republican Army (IRA) inmates broke out of The Maze, considered to be one of Europe's most escape-proof prisons. The Maze was the main prison in Northern Ireland for sentenced republican and loyalist paramilitaries. The inmates used smuggled guns and knives to overpower staff, and hijacked a kitchen van to drive to the main gate, and out of the compound.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Mcerlane
The Alcatraz escape
With the help of sharpened spoons and an improvised drill, three bank robbers managed to burrow their way out of their cells in Alcatraz high security prison in the San Francisco Bay in 1962. To fool the prison guards at bay, the trio placed dummy heads in their beds. Once they were out, they used an inflatable raft made out of raincoats - and vanished.
Image: imago/Kai Koehler
Daring flight
It sounds like a script for Hollywood blockbuster: Pascal Payet twice used helicopters for his dramatic prison breaks. In 2001, the convicted murderer fled from a prison in a French village using a hijacked helicopter. In 2007, he again used a helicopter for a get-away. Previously, he had helped organize the escape of three captives who had been in jail with him - again using a helicopter.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/B. Horvat
Most wanted fugitive
Awaiting trial, serial killer Theodore Robert Bundy escaped from a county law library by jumping from a window. Re-arrested and sent to jail in Colorado, Bundy lost 30 pounds so he could escape again through a small light fixture hole in the cell ceiling. Bundy spread terror across the US, killing numerous women between January 1974 and 1978, when he was finally recaptured and sentenced to death.
Image: picture-alliance/AP
An Easter escape
Inmate Walter Stürm, imprisoned for stealing offenses, left a smug note in his cell after his get-away from a Swiss prison in 1981. "Off hunting Easter eggs," the note read. Stürm had sawed through the bars on his window, let himself down to the ground to the prison yard and fled to freedom by using a ladder. It was his third prison break.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Busting out
In June 2015, two convicted murderers, David Sweat and Richard Matt, broke out of a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, cutting holes in the walls of their adjoining cells, and working their way through a maze of catwalks and pipes to emerge from a manhole. The duo did a practice run the night before the escape. Matt was later killed by police, while Sweat was recaptured, badly injured.
Image: Getty Images/New York State Governor's Office/D. McGee
