Drug lord El Chapo has hair shaved off and gives job as 'farmer' in rare jail footage

Notorious drugs lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is shown having his hair and moustache shaved off in pictures showing a taste of his life at a top-security US prison.

The South American drugs kingpin, who became a billionaire as the head of the largest ever drugs empire, is shown on the floor next to a lethal police dog.

It's a far cry from the luxury he enjoyed as head of the Sinaloa Cartel, who flooded the globe with tons of cocaine, heroin and other drugs.

The pictures are taken from a seven-year-old video obtained by news site Latinus and released this week showing Mexican law enforcement registering and interviewing Guzman at the Altiplano prison in 2016. The crime boss is now under lock and key for life.

Guzman was extradited in 2017 to the United States and such footage is rare.

Clad in a beige uniform marked "3870," the captured drug kingpin answers the Mexican prison guard's questions calmly, barely looking up as he scrubs black fingerprint ink from his hands.

Asked for his alias he replies: "El Chapo."

He gives his occupation as "Farmer."

The man in the images has the same haircut, features and build as Guzman on the day of his arrest, and his prison clothes and haircut match later images of the gangster behind bars, news agency Reuters reports.

Guzman's arrest followed two earlier escapes - one via a mile-long tunnel from the same jail - that had humiliated the Mexican government.

It was not immediately clear how Latinus obtained the video, or why it has now surfaced.