Puente Grande

After lying low in Mexico City, Guzmán made his way down to Guatemala en route to El Salvador, where he had business matters to attend to.

However, shortly after arriving in Guatemala, he was arrested and swiftly handed over to Mexican authorities, who transferred him to a prison just outside of Mexico City in Almoloya de Juárez, where he was handed a 20-year sentence for drug trafficking, bribery, and the murder of Archbishop Ocampo, before being sent to a maximum security prison on the outskirts of Guadalajara called Puente Grande.

Almost immediately, he got to work bribing prison officials to make his stay much more comfortable.

Soon he was joined by a personal chef who prepared any meal that he wanted, be it hamburgers or lobsters, and with the prison warden on the take, he also had access to anything he desired, such as cell phones, new shoes, clothes, and even his wives.

At first, they regularly visited their boss in prison to discuss business matters, but this stopped happening after it was discovered that Arellano Félix's gangsters were roaming around Guadalajara, forcing El Chapo to pass on confidential messages via a brother-in-law who visited him frequently.

After a pleasant eight years behind bars, several developments convinced him that it was time to leave.

This included the start of an investigation into corruption at Puente Grande that threatened to take away his special perks, in addition to the much more worrying prospect of being extradited to the USA, where he was sure to spend the rest of his life in an American jail.

On the 18th of January 2001, the Supreme Court of Mexico signed a decree that would make it much easier for Mexican criminals to be transferred to the USA, prompting him to pull off his escape the next day.

Guzman fled south of Mexico using false documents, and he went down to Guatemala.

And in June of '93, Guatemalan authorities actually captured, uh, him and took El Chapo to the border, where he was transferred over to Mexican authorities, and then he was convicted on drug charges and sent to the Puente Grande prison.

Now, on paper, the Mexican government had removed one of the most dangerous cartel members it had been dealing with for some time.

But behind the scenes, Guzman, even from prison, continued to run the cartel, and I'm sure prison corruption helped in making that possible.