1 By hiding in a laundry basket
Guzman had previously escaped in 2001, apparently with the collusion of prison staff. While there are different stories about how Guzman broke out, the most widespread suggests he hid in a laundry cart which was then wheeled out of the prison to a waiting truck.
2 By taking hostages at gunpoint
Pablo Escobar, the notorious Colombian drug lord once estimated to be one of the richest men on earth, surrendered to authorities in 1991. However, when the Government tried to move him from his luxurious and lenient prison, La Catedral, to a more conventional prison the next year, Escobar decided to escape. Soldiers surrounded the prison, but Escobar took two high-ranking government officials and a prison warden hostage. A shootout ensued and several people were killed but Escobar and a number of other inmates escaped. That Escobar and his crew had guns in the prison led many to believe prison staff were complicit in the escape.
3 By driving out in a car
In 1996, Jose Santacruz-Londono, a leader at what was then the largest drug gang in the world, the Cali drug cartel, escaped from prison in Bogota, Colombia. According to the Chicago Tribune, he "slipped out in a car that resembled one used earlier in the day by prosecutors". Prosecutors' cars were not checked by prison security staff. Santacruz was shot dead by police later that year.
4 By getting fake release documents
Last year, Nini Johana Usuga David, also known as "la Negra", was released from prison with a number of other inmates. This release was not supposed to happen: the Colombian media later reported that the group appeared to have been released due to forged documents.
5 By dressing in drag
Cocaine smuggler Dwight Worker, an American, was locked up in 1973 in the notorious Lecumberri Prison, known for its harsh conditions. The only inmate to ever escape its confines was Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in 1912. And then there was Worker, who, after striking up a relationship with a woman visiting another convict in the prison, plotted an incredible way out: dressing in drag. He shaved his face, donned a wig, dressed in heels and carried forged documentation claiming he was a female guest visiting a prisoner. Worker's plan worked, and has since been the subject of books and TV shows.
6 By waiting for a church service
In 1970, Juan Ramon Matta, a Honduran smuggler with connections to Colombia's once mighty cartels, was arrested in the United States and jailed. In 1971, he managed to slip away from the minimum-security prison at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida by walking out the back door of the jail's chapel during church services. He went on to become a kingpin, with a network of businesses in Central America. He's currently serving 12 life sentences at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
7 By hiding in a sofa
In 1999, in a joint operation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Colombian authorities arrested cocaine smuggler Eder Villafane Martinez. He managed to escape his prison near Medellin in broad daylight, the BBC reported. According to one account, he was spirited away in a sofa constructed within the prison. He later resurfaced among cartels in Mexico.
