The small L-shaped room at the end of a corridor in Mexico’s Altiplano prison has one unmistakable feature linking it to its most recent occupant: a square hole in the floor of a tiny shower area.
It was through this hole that drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán slipped out of the high-security prison last Saturday night after only 16 months inside, emerging at the other end of a sophisticated tunnel about a mile away, in an extraordinary escape that has once again turned a spotlight on corruption and collusion in the prison system.
On Wednesday, the government permitted journalists to visit Guzmán’s cell – now emptied of all his possessions – in an area of the prison reserved for its most dangerous inmates.
The hole, which measures about 50cm (1.5 feet) along each side, reveals thatthe floor in the shower area is only a few inches thick. Little is visible in the darkness below, beyond a severed tube resting against the wall. There is no sign of the ladder that Guzmán climbed down to reach the tunnel.
The cell also contains a wash basin and a latrine, as well as a concrete stool and small slab that served as a desk. A barred window high in the external wall allows for some ventilation and provides a view of barbed wire coiled atop a security fence, and a sliver of grey sky.
The hole is shielded from a surveillance camera by a chest-high wall designed to provide inmates with a modicum of privacy while they wash. The camera was supposed to be monitored around the clock.
Earlier this week, the authorities released the last images the camera recorded of the leader of the Sinaloa cartel before he made his escape.
The footage shows the capo pacing his cell for a minute or so, examining the shower area, then heading for his bed and appearing to take off his shoes. He walks with more purpose back to the shower and drops out of sight behind the wall. He is not seen again.
Mexico’s top security officials, called to a special session of the country’s national security commission later on Thursday, are likely to be quizzed on how the tunnel could have been built directly below the prison, apparently without anyone noticing. While most of the excavation took place about 30ft below the surface, breaking through the floor of the shower must have made a significant amount of noise.
The prison was notably quiet on Wednesday as small groups of journalists were guided through the main building to cell No 20, passing through 22 locked steel doors and multiple ID checkpoints on the way.
From a neighbouring cell in Guzmán’s corridor came the hum of a radio belonging to an inmate who was listening to a football match. The voice of another inmate could be heard as he settled down to his evening meal and wished his neighbours bon appetit.
Elsewhere in the jail, inmates with shaved heads and beige uniforms queued up for their dinner in a communal dining area, but the occupants of the cells in El Chapo’s corridor remained locked up as they received their food.
There are also likely to be questions about the precise nature of the tunnel’s construction. The fact that it emerges exactly within the surveillance camera’s blind spot suggests somebody gave Guzmán’s engineers a copy of the prison plans.
National security commission members say they will push senior ministers and officials to provide details of Guzmán’s getaway.
The government has insisted that the Altiplano prison, about 90 miles from Mexico City, fulfilled international security standards and admitted that Guzmán almost certainly received help from a prison official or officials. It has promised a full investigation but has shown no sign of bowing to pressure for heads to roll.
Commission members are also keen to pin down the amount of time that passed between Guzmán’s disappearance from view and the alarm being raised.
On Monday, the interior minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, said the alarm had been raised immediately, but local media have cited prison sources saying it took half an hour for police to begin the search for Guzmán. This would have given him a significant headstart as he escaped through the tunnel, which was equipped with ventilation ducts as well as lightbulbs that it appears he smashed as he went by.
It is not clear whether Chapo ran through the tunnel, which at 5ft 6in was high enough for him to stand in, or whether he used a motorcycle found inside that appears to have been employed to move dirt and tools.
There is also no indication of where he went once he climbed up the ladder at the other end and returned to the surface and freedom. So far there has been no hint that the massive manhunt is catching up with him.
The interior ministry said on Wednesday that nearly 10,000 federal police officers were on maximum alert across Mexico, with about 500 involved in special search units. One hundred thousand pamphlets with a recent photograph of Guzmán have been distributed, checkpoints have been set up on main roads, sniffer dog units have been deployed and security controls at airports have been enhanced, the ministry added.
The Mexican government this week offered a reward of 60m pesos (£2.5m) for information leading to the capture of Guzmán.
The boss of the Sinaloa cartel was recently rated by Forbes as the 14th richest man in the world. In 2001, he broke out of another top-security prison, Puente Grande, reportedly in a laundry truck.
