Raid of Mexican ranch for "El Chapo" turns up empty
MEXICO -- A law enforcement source confirmed that Mexican Marines raided a ranch last week in the Mexican mountains where they suspected fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo Guzman" was hiding. But they came up empty, reports CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton.
U.S. law enforcement had intercepted communications suggesting El Chapo was hiding at the ranch in the Sierra Madre range. But when Mexican Marines got there, all they found was clothing and other items which they believed was left behind by the illusive crime boss, the source told CBS News.
Meanwhile the hunt continues for "El Chapo" who escaped from the maximum security Altiplano prison last July.
In a scheme befitting a crime novel, Mexico's most powerful drug lord escaped from a maximum security prison through a one mile tunnel that opened into the shower area of his cell.
The elaborate, ventilated escape hatch built allegedly without the detection of authorities allowed Guzman to do what Mexican officials promised would never happen after his re-capture last year -- slip out of one of the country's most secure penitentiaries for the second time.
Authorities said Guzman went to the shower and escaped through a two-by-two foot opening in the floor, using a ladder to climb down into an elaborate 5 foot-tall tunnel, built 30 feet underground, that led to a construction site, about a mile south of the prison.
Mexican authorities are still on the hunt for "El Chapo," but U.S. law enforcement agencies are equally eager to capture Guzman.
Two-thousand miles away, the Chicago crime commission weighed in on the investigation's progress in July.
The commission's executive director Joseph Ways had said the most wanted man in Mexico was now public enemy number one in Chicago, responsible for waves of drug related violence.