Go inside the ‘supermax’ prison housing El Chapo: Can it hold him?

Mexico’s most notorious drug lord El Chapo was sentenced earlier this week to life plus 30 years, and now he is spending that time in America’s most secure prison.

In an operation designed to keep the modern-day criminal ‘Houdini’ from escaping, El Chapo’s lawyer confirms his client was flown by helicopter, and then plane, to America’s only ‘supermax’ prison called ADX in Colorado.

El Chapo was sentenced to life plus 30 years on Wednesday, after being convicted on 10 counts related to his drug-trafficking operations.

But former DEA agents and other analysts said they believe El Chapo’s associates may have already cased the supermax facility to plot a possible escape — something he’s done time and time again.

“You can find it on Google Earth now. So there’s no doubt that his cronies, his hardest men, have looked into all possible scenarios. Would they be willing, is he worth them launching a full-scale attack on the prison?” said Malcolm Beith, author of “The Last Narco.”

The Florence supermax houses notorious terrorists like the Boston Marathon Bomber and the Unabomber. No one has ever escaped.

Former prison officials say El Chapo is in a 7-by-12-foot cell, at least 23-hours a day. But experts say this is an inmate who could likely test this airtight facility, like no other.

(Artists’s view of cell by RicHard-59, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link )

At Mexico’s maximum-security Altiplano Prison in 2015- El Chapo disappeared while walking through a shower stall.

There was an escape hatch in the floor that led to an elaborate tunnel, complete with electricity, lighting, tracks laid along the ground, and a modified motorcycle cart for transportation.

He once escaped another high-security Mexican prison, reportedly hidden in a laundry cart.

And he once got out of a safe house, into a tunnel, and escaped- completely naked- while police were closing in on him.

“Chapo Guzman I consider to be the modern-day Houdini. He escapes from the two most maximum-secure penitentiaries in Mexico. And the one in Altiplano was the most spectacular prison break that I’ve seen anywhere in the world,” said Jack Donson, former Bureau of Prisons treatment specialist.

One former Bureau of Prisons official says, unlike his previous attempts, it’s not likely El Chapo or his men can get to the warden or guards at the supermax in order to breach the facility.

“It’s gonna be impossible to corrupt one person, two people. There’s just too many checks and balances in the system, you know, control centers, cracking doors,” said Michael Vigil, former DEA Chief of International Operations.

But could El Chapo’s wife Emma Coronel, a former beauty queen, help him escape?

It’s unclear if she would be given the chance to visit him there.

At his trial, a former associate testified that Coronel helped him – with that 2015 Altiplano escape.. passing messages to, and from him.

She has not been charged with any crime, however.

“I think she’ll visit him and pass messages to family. He has sons who are running the cartel, and I think that’s gonna stay her role,” said Beith.