The elaborate prison escape of Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman may have cost $50 million including huge bribes to prison officials.
An estimate of the cost of the break out was given by Jhon Jairo Velasquez Vasquez, the former chief hitman of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
The escape was a devastating blow to President Enrique Pena Nieto.
As Mexico's biggest manhunt intensified the president and his wife, former soap opera star Angelica Rivera, were pictured enjoying Bastille Day on a state visit to France.
Guzman's likeliest hiding place is believed to be to the mountainous Golden Triangle area in Central Mexico.
Jose Reveles, the author of books about Mexican drug trafficking, told the Los Angeles Times: "They used to say, once El Chapo went into the mountains it would be like trying to find Osama bin Laden. He has his spies, his spotters, his killers."
The cost of the escape would have been easily affordable for Guzman, whose fortune has been estimated at $1 billion by Forbes magazine.
Mexican police released a recent photograph of him with his hair and black moustache shaved off.
That cast doubt on the veracity of photographs circulated in the Mexican media purporting to show Guzman after his escape flying in a helicopter and drinking a beer.
According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration the diminutive Guzman, who is believed to be aged 58, began planning his break out of prison immediately after he was captured in February 2014.
The DEA first alerted Mexican authorities to tip-offs it was receiving about escape plots 16 months ago.
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