El Chapo’s Mexican home to be sold via lottery with tickets costing $12

Guzman fled the two-bedroom property, which has been valued at $183,000 (€156,000), in 2014 when Mexican marines had it surrounded. During El Chapo’s escape from the home via an underground tunnel, the property was damaged by the marines and has been abandoned ever since.

Mexico’s Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People, known as INDEP, has since repainted the property, tiling over the space beneath the bathtub leading to the infamous underground tunnel where Guzman fled. Tickets for the lottery began selling this week for about $12.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the proceeds from the auction will benefit medicine, vaccines, scholarships and road construction.

“It is about returning to the people, the town, what was confiscated... all that we can raffle off so that what is obtained is destined for the development of the nation and welfare of the people,” the president said.

INDEP’s website lists it only as “Casa en Culiacan,” without reference to its history. It is about 2,800 square feet and located, perhaps appropriately, in the area of Libertad, or “Freedom.” Guzman’s freedom lasted only days after the tunnel escape. (©Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2021)