Drug baron's escape 'cost $74.6m'

A forensics worker climbs up a ladder leading to the exit of the tunnel that was used by Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. Photo / AP

Leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel would have paid huge bribes, says Escobar hitman.

The elaborate prison escape of Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman may have cost US$50 million ($74.6 million) including huge bribes to prison officials.

An estimate of the cost of the breakout was given by Jhon Jairo Velasquez Vasquez, former hitman of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Vasquez, who killed 250 people and was released from jail last year, said: "You have to buy off the guards and they know how rich he is. They will have asked for tens of millions of dollars. They had sensors and cameras. That escape cost money."

The Mexican Government has offered a reward of US$3.8 million for Guzman's recapture. But Vasquez, known as Popeye, said no one would turn him in for less than US$20 million. He said: "El Chapo Guzman will die free."

A motorcycle adapted to a rail sits under the half-built house where drug lord Joaquin Guzman made his escape through a tunnel from Altiplano prison. Photo / AP

Guzman vanished from the maximum security Altiplano prison on Sunday even though he was wearing a monitoring bracelet and surveillance cameras were trained on his cell 24 hours a day. The Sinaloa cartel chief escaped though a 1.5km tunnel which had been fitted with a motorcycle on rails.

Mexico has released a video showing Guzman going into his prison cell's shower and bending down behind a short dividing wall before disappearing.

He paced back and forth several times between the bathroom area and his bed before vanishing. Mexico's Government has sacked the head of the prison and several other leading officials. A total of 34 prison workers have been interrogated.

Guzman's likeliest hiding place is believed to be to the Golden Triangle area in Central Mexico. Jose Reveles, the author of books about Mexican drug trafficking, told the Los Angeles Times: "They used to say, once El Chapo went into the mountains it would be like trying to find Osama bin Laden."

The escape would have been easily affordable for Guzman, with a fortune of US$1 billion.

The exit of the tunnel that according to authorities was used by Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman. Photo / AP

'Shorty' Guzman

Name: Joaquin Guzman Loera

Age: Believed to be around 58

Business: Leader of Mexican drug empire Sinaloa Cartel. Ranked among most powerful men in the world by Forbes magazine every year since 2009

Escapes: Hid in a laundry cart to escape a maximum security prison in 2001. Said to have escaped from authorities through the bottom of a bathtub in 2014. Fled through a tunnel dug from his cell on Sunday.

- AFP