MEXICO CITY, April 15 (UPI) -- A lawyer for drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman allegedly snuck a woman into the Altiplano maximum security prison in Mexico by using fake documents.
The woman was brought in supposedly as part of Guzmán's defense team, but the Mexican National Security Commission found that the woman gave authorities a fake identification and a birth certificate under a false name.
The ploy was discovered after the woman finished her visit and it is unclear what charges, if any, would be filed.
"In recent days... Joaquin Guzmán held a meeting with a woman, who for admission identified herself with a badge from the Federal Electoral Institute and who also exhibited a birth certificate," the National Security Committee said in a statement Tuesday. "Her entry... was in the area of Judicial Practice, where she went along with the [Guzmán's] defense, supposedly to conduct an informational hearing."
Guzmán was the head of the Sinaloa Cartel and was estimated to be worth about $1 billion.
El Chapo -- meaning "The Short One" or "Shorty" -- so dubbed because of his height, was captured in Guatemala in 1993 and then extradited to Mexico to face murder and drug trafficking charges. He escaped from prison in 2001 by bribing prison guards and was re-captured last February.
