Nine guards have confessed that they helped 30 inmates escape and allowed gunmen from the Los Zetas drug cartel to enter another section of the prison in the northern Mexican city of Apodaca, where they killed 44 members of the rival Gulf cartel, officials said.

“There was a deal with some of the guards. First, there was the escape between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m., and minutes later the fight, which lasted about one and a half hours, took place,” Nuevo Leon state Security Council spokesman Jorge Domene said.