I'm no prison security specialist but right in downtown Manhattan, of all places, sounds like the least secure spot to host this powerful escape artist of a drug lord of anywhere in the country.
The claim that a a billionaire drug dealer in Mexico has to "escape" by crawling out of a tunnel from a rural Mexican jail is pretty funny.
He probably just walked out and the tunnel was built to make the administration of the jail look less guilty despite the fact they were probably fully aware of what was happening.
The problem with coming in contact with people like Guzman is you can chose between cooperating or misery & death. I'm sure the head of that jail decided he'd cooperate the moment he heard Guzman would be housed there and who can blame him.
Plato o Plomo....
EDIT should be "plata"
(thanks $diety for the two hour edit window)
It's "plata o plomo".
"Plata" can mean "silver" or "money". In this context they are referring to "money".
"Plato" is literally "plate" as in where you put your food on.
He's pretty close to a 4/5/6, an R/W, a J/Z, and maybe a 1 train. That puts him at about 25 minutes from NY Penn, which allows him access to Amtrak or the LIRR.
He's about an hour by public transport from LGA, but that would require a bus. The fastest route to JFK would be 1h11m if he took the A (which isn't all that close) followed by an airtrain. If he chose Newark Airport it'd be something like 25 minutes to NY Penn station + 25 minutes to Newark Penn station and maybe another 10 minutes to Newark Airport via NJ Transit, so about an hour. In other words, from escape to the front door of the airport he's looking at at least an hour of commute, by which point I'd hope someone noticed he's missing.
This all, of course, assumes he takes public transport.
It's probably also worth noting that El Chapo isn't going to just run around the city without modifying his appearance somehow.
That jet would take him 100 miles into the atlantic and he and an accomplice parachute out with a liferaft and little engine.
The plane carries on to mexico as a decoy.
Radars aren't good enough to see small craft far from the shore in the ocean, so he can stay at sea as long as he likes and land anywhere. The search area would be huge - if we can't find MH370, we can't find him!
Why not a small submarine?
It is also located right next to the courthouse and this is the procedure to go to court:
In an article published on April 5, 2011, Jim Dwyer of the New York Times described the experience of an inmate being transferred from the facility to the federal court across the street: A prisoner going to court from the Metropolitan Correctional Center is presented to federal marshals in the basement of the building. Shackled at the ankles, chained at the waist and cuffed at the hands, the prisoner hop-marches through a tunnel nearly 40 feet (12 meters) below the street. The prisoner and escorts go through channels, or corridors, with electronic doors at each end. These are controlled remotely by officers who watch the journey through cameras. More prominent prisoners, who need to be segregated from the general prison population, are housed in the 10-South wing, which is noted for severely confining conditions.
During this passage from jail to court, no one lays eyes on the prisoner except the marshals and the people in the surveillance stations. Once they have reached the north end of the tunnel, they wait for the prisoner elevator. Inside is a locked cage that the prisoner stands in for the ride up to the courthouse cells [1].
I think it is pretty secure.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Departmen...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Correctional_Cent...