Story By: Jonathan Macias, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Two more of the 91 prisoners who broke free from a Paraguayan jail using a tunnel have been arrested when they were reportedly trying to flee the country.
Official said 91 prisoners fled using the tunnel but 16 of them were captured while still in the area with 75 making good their escape.
According to local media, jailbreaker Sabio Dario Gonzalez Figueredo was arrested in the neighbourhood of San Juan in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero in the eastern Paraguayan department of Amambay near the border with Brazil.
The head of the Investigative Police in Amambay, Feliciano Martinez, told local media that the prisoner was hiding in a house while he was waiting to leave the city.
Paraguayan national Figueredo was reportedly serving a prison sentence for aggravated robbery.
His fellow inmate, Brazilian national Eduardo Alves Da Cruz was also arrested this Monday in Ponta Pora in Brazil, according to the Department of Border Operations (DOF).
Alvez Da Cruz was reportedly serving a sentence for drug trafficking.
Reports claim the police are searching several houses in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero for the escaped prisoners but no more arrests have been reported.
The Brazilian Ministry of justice Sergio Moro has offered the help of Brazilian authorities to arrest the prisoners who broke free.
The prisoners, the majority of whom belong to the Brazilian gang Primer Comando Capital (First Capital Command (PCC), escaped from the Pedro Juan Caballero prison.
The authorities have since reportedly found a tunnel which they believe was used in the escape.
The tunnel was carefully hidden to avoid detection but despite that the Minister of Justice, Cecilia Perez, told reporters: “This was not the work of one man alone and was not done in a day, it is impossible that nobody knew anything, it cannot be that nobody saw anything.”
The authorities are not ruling out the possibility that many of the missing prisoners may also have walked out of the prison’s main exit with the complicity of the guards.
The Director of the prison, Christan Gonzalez, along with the security chiefs of the facility, have been fired and arrested according to reports.
Local media report the Public Ministry suspect that prison staff may have participated in the prison break and at least 28 prison guards have been detained with prosecutor Reinalda Palacios saying “they will all be investigated and there could be more arrested”.
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