El Chapo's Cell Sounded Like A Construction Site And Guards Didn't Care

The security footage that shows the escape of notorious cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán includes loud hammering and clanging sounds that guards apparently disregarded. 

The video, which Mexican broadcaster Televisa aired with sound for the first time on Wednesday, adds to President Enrique Peña Nieto’s embarrassment over the drug lord’s escape from a maximum security prison and is sure to further fuel allegations that authorities within the jail helped free Guzmán.

Mexican authorities released surveillance video immediately after Guzmán slid out of his cell on July 11 through a small opening in the shower and into a tunnel that led to an unfinished house roughly a mile away. But the video they released did not include sound.

The newly released version of the video includes a series of noises so loud they can be heard over the television in Guzmán’s cell. It sounds at times like the banging of hammers, the whir of a drill or some other power tool. And yet, guards didn’t react as they watched the footage.

“At 8:49 p.m., in the Monitoring Center, everything continues after if nothing were happening in cell number 20,” an article on Televisa’s website site says. “Despite the repeated noises, the monitors keep sitting there and show no signs of alarm.”

Guards didn’t go in to inspect Guzmán’s cell until 25 minutes after he escaped.

Journalist Anabel Hernández first reported in August that the security footage included heavy clanking sounds apparently disregarded by guards, based on documents obtained from the Mexican attorney general’s office.

Afterwards, Mexican politicians and journalists pressured the government for months to release the complete video with sound.

Listen to the loud sounds of a drug lord escaping from jail in the video above.