U.S. Says Mexican Drug Lord El Chapo Guzmán's Prison Escape Could Trigger More Border Violence

Testifying before Congress last week, Robert Harris, the man in charge of border security at the Department of Homeland Security, warned that the recent escape of Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, “could potentially instigate further border violence similar to incidents following his first prison escape in 2001.” Guzmán’s current whereabouts are unknown, despite a massive international manhunt to recapture him and a $5 million reward offered by the Obama Administration. More than half a dozen criminal indictments are pending against him in several U.S. states.  Harris’s warnings are not unwarranted. Guzmán’s 2001 break out unleashed a bloody drug cartel turf war, with Guzmán attempting to take over lucrative border crossing points controlled by rival cartels. During the following years, cartel leaders were executed in daylight and violence, particularly in the border region, reached new levels.  “The reach and influence of the Mexican cartels… stretches across and beyond the Southwest border, operating through loose business ties with smaller organizations in cities across the U.S.,” Harris said, adding that the threat of the Mexican cartels, “is dynamic; rival organizations are constantly vying for control, and as U.S. and Mexican anti-drug efforts diminish criminal networks, new groups arise and form new alliances.” It took the Mexican authorities 13 years to recapture El Chapo in 2014, only to see him flee again 17 months later. Although the U.S. government claims to be confident the drug lord will be hunted down with U.S. assistance, Guzmán has a proven reputation of outsmarting his hunters...more