El Chapo Halloween costume to be the year's big hit as Mexican company launches Joaquin Guzman masks

The hunt for Mexico's most-wanted kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman may get a little harder this Halloween with a Mexican company capitalising on the druglord's brazen escape, by releasing a costume with mask in time for the scary season.

Grupo Rev in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca have begun producing masks in Guzman's likeness. With the company exporting to some 30 countries globally, the kingpin's costume complete with prison costume is set to be a hot seller. Company head, Diego Esponda, said that the company has long been making fun of political figures, both within Mexico and beyond.

"It's a criticism of the government, we'd had masks of (former president Carlos) Salinas Gortari, then a mask for (former president Vicente) Fox also, (former president Ernesto) Zedillo, (former president Felipe) Calderon, everyone. In his time, we had Osama Bin Laden, and so for 'Chapo' it's a joke about the government. We had him, he got away and we're also laughing at our reality," he said.

Guzman escaped from Mexico's most-secure prison via a mile-long tunnel from his cell in July. Mask designer, Hector Bustos, said the mould for the design was carefully chosen.

"The last photos released of him was of a shaved head and without moustache and we started to do it like that. But we saw there was the problem in that he has a particular face and it takes a lot of work to identify him. So we based it on the first photos taken of him, because it's the more identifiable profile of him," he said.

Guzman is the head of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa Cartel, thought to be responsible for countless numbers of homicides during the country's brutal drugs war and for smuggling tonnes of illicit drugs north to the United States.