World’s most secure jail to be put to the test for El Chapo

The Rocky Mountains can be seen in the distance behind the Federal Correctional Complex near Florence, Colo. Within the complex is Supermax, where Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman will be serving his prison sentence

Drug lord Joaquin Guzman has an unparalleled record of jailbreaks, having escaped two high-security Mexican prisons before his ultimate capture and extradition to the United States.

So with Guzman convicted on Tuesday of drug trafficking and staring at an expected life sentence, where will the US imprison a larger-than-life kingpin with a Houdini-like tendency to slip away?

Experts say Guzman seems the ideal candidate for the federal government’s “Supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado, also known as ADX for “administrative maximum”. The facility is so secure, so remote and so austere that it has been called the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”.

“El Chapo fits the bill perfectly,” said Cameron Lindsay, a retired warden who ran three federal facilities. “I’d be absolutely shocked if he’s not sent to the ADX.”

Located outside an old mining town about two hours south of Denver, Supermax’s hardened buildings house the nation’s most violent offenders, with many of its 400 inmates held alone for 23 hours a day in 7ft by 12ft cells with fixed furnishings made of reinforced concrete.

Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols are among those who call it home.

But Guzman – set to be sentenced in June for smuggling enormous amounts of narcotics into the US and having a hand in dozens of murders – would stand out even from Supermax’s infamous roster because of his reputation for breaking out.

That includes a sensational 2015 escape from the maximum-security Altiplano prison in central Mexico, where he communicated with accomplices for weeks via mobile phone, slipped into an escape hatch beneath his shower, hopped on the back of a waiting motorcycle and sped through a mile-long, hand-dug tunnel to freedom.

Bribery is widely believed to have enabled that jailbreak, as well as a 2001 escape in which Guzman was smuggled out of another top-security Mexican prison in a laundry basket.

“There had to be collusion from within,” said Mike Vigil, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who worked undercover in Mexico. “There is no doubt corruption played a role in both of his spectacular escapes.”

Could that happen at Supermax? Not likely. Prisoners at Supermax spend years in solitary confinement and often go days “with only a few words spoken to them,” an Amnesty International report found.

One former prisoner, in an interview with an American newspaper, described the lockup as a “high-tech version of hell, designed to shut down all sensory perception”.

Most inmates at Supermax are given a television, but their only actual view of the outside world is via a four-inch window. Its design prevents them from even determining where they are housed in the facility. Human interaction is minimal. Prisoners eat all meals in the solitude of their own cells, within feet of their toilets.

The facility itself is guarded by razor-wire fences, gun towers, heavily armed patrols and attack dogs.

“If ever there were an escape-proof prison, it’s the facility at Florence,” said Burl Cain, the former long-time warden of the maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary. “It’s the prison of all prisons.”