MEXICO CITY — Internal documents from one of Mexico’s largest and most profitable drug-trafficking cartels help explain why the group’s leader remains at large, nearly a decade after he boldly escaped from a maximum-security prison by hiding in a laundry cart.
Some of those who are supposed to be pursuing him are apparently on his payroll.
The paperwork, recovered by Mexican authorities from a suspected associate of the drug don, Joaquín Guzman, show that he has a sophisticated counterintelligence operation and that he is a master at buying off top police officers and soldiers with his ample drug profits.
The documents, leaked to Mexico’s Reforma newspaper, were recovered from a Hummer last year that authorities said belonged to Roberto Beltran Burgos, a suspected lieutenant of Guzman.
