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Inmates' accounts of drilling revisit El Chapo's tunnel escape

Newly released interrogation footage and cell recordings form a documentary report on the warnings before Guzmán left Mexico's Altiplano prison.

Channel: NMás ·

MexicoStory of October 29, 2026Trari Newsroom

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La fuga y recaptura del Chapo: los detalles de la Operación Cisne Negro

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0:28Inmates describe hearing repeated drilling and hammering before Guzmán's escape.
1:14Recorded interrogations question prisoners housed near Guzmán's cell about what they heard.
1:44Cell surveillance and audio reconstruct the hours before the escape.
2:40Footage shows Guzmán entering the tunnel; the report examines the guards' delayed response.
3:12Prisoners describe unusual routines that evening, including an earlier medication round.

Prisoners housed near Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán describe hearing drilling and hammering day and night before his escape from Mexico's maximum-security Altiplano prison in July 2015. Their recorded accounts are central to a report revisiting what was audible inside the prison, and how guards responded when he disappeared.

Mexico's NMás presents the material in a news report introducing Operación Cisne Negro, or Operation Black Swan, a documentary directed by journalist Denise Maerker. The production reconstructs the former Sinaloa Cartel leader's escape and the search that ended with his recapture in January 2016. The excerpt concentrates on the escape itself rather than the eventual arrest.

Recorded questioning shows former Criminal Investigation Agency director Tomás Zerón and federal crimes prosecutor Felipe Muñoz interviewing inmates from neighboring cells. Several prisoners describe persistent construction sounds. One says he was told to stop mentioning the noise or face transfer to another prison.

The report then pairs surveillance images of Guzmán's cell with audio from the hours before he escaped. It identifies loud construction sounds and describes a hydraulic jack being used to break through the shower floor. An on-screen caption is more cautious about the precise instant, labeling it the possible moment the floor was fractured.

Footage shows Guzmán entering the tunnel on July 11, 2015. The report highlights the delay before guards reach the cell and begin the response protocol. A guard's recorded reaction acknowledges the hole in the floor.

Other inmate testimony raises questions about changes to prison routines that evening. Servando Gómez Martínez says medication was distributed earlier than usual; Héctor Beltrán Leyva recalls commotion that led prisoners to think Guzmán was ill. These are the prisoners' accounts, not independent findings about who enabled the escape.

The upload is titled "La fuga y recaptura del Chapo: los detalles de la Operación Cisne Negro" ("El Chapo's escape and recapture: The details of Operation Black Swan"). The documentary brings together former officials' testimony, intelligence material and documents, with footage the broadcaster says had not previously been made public.

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