Four Mexican prison officials charged with aiding 'El Chapo' escape

MEXICO CITY, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Two Mexican prison employees and two members of Mexico's secret service have been charged with helping notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escape.

The two Altiplano Federal Prison employees were control room personnel who were responsible for monitoring Guzman's cell. They were accused of not alerting the prison after Guzman's escape.

The two secret service members were stationed at the prison. All four were charged with not following protocols and not alerting superiors, as all systems needed to sound alarms were functioning fully.

Guzman escaped from a Mexican prison for the second time in July by using a mile-long tunnel, which could have taken a year to build. At least three others have also been charged over the escape.

The entrance of the tunnel measured about 20-by-20 inches and the tunnel itself was about 5 feet deep. Other sections of the tunnel delve much deeper. PVC piping, likely used for ventilation and lighting, was found throughout the tunnel. A motorcycle was also found, apparently used to dig and to transport materials for the tunnel.

"El Chapo" -- meaning "The Short One" or "shorty" -- so dubbed because of his 5-foot-6-inch frame, 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 hiding in a laundry cart after bribing prison guards, and was re-captured in February 2014. Guzman's previous escape cost him about $2.5 million.

Authorities are focusing on Costa Rica in their search for Guzman after his son, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, posted a picture on Twitter that seemingly tagged their location through the social media website's geotagging function.

The Colombian government announced in August it was helping Mexican authorities with training and intelligence gathering in the hunt for Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who is estimated to be worth about $1 billion.

Colombia has decades of experience in combating the drug trade. Pablo Escobar, Colombia's most notorious trafficker, was regarded as the "King of Cocaine" with a net worth thought to be about $24 billion -- recognized as the world's seventh-richest man by Forbes magazine at the height of his power.

Escobar was imprisoned for about a year before he escaped in 1992. He spent several months on the run before he was shot to death in Medellín by a special police unit in 1993.