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Argentinian Prisoners' Escape Plan Goes Wrong As They Dig Tunnel Into Kennels

Argentinian Prisoners' Escape Plan Goes Wrong As They Dig Tunnel Into Kennels

They weren't expecting this

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers

If you're thinking about making a prison break, and digging a tunnel is your route out, you really need to make sure you've got up-to-date blueprints of the place.

Otherwise you could end up like this group of inmates in Argentina who, rather than shovelling their way to freedom, ended up breaking into the kennels for the jail's K-9 unit.

According to local media outlet Clarin, the group of criminals took around two days to make the tunnel at the Florencia Varela Penitentiary, Buenos Aires.

The escape to the tunnel measured just three feet wide and and five feet deep. To make sure their plans weren't uncovered by prison guards, they hid the hole under a slab of plywood and covered it with sawdust.

Servicio Penitenciario Bonaerense

But sadly for the group of would-be escapists, it didn't make any difference in the end as they poked their heads out to find they had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

And if things couldn't get any worse, their plan was well and truly scuppered when guards discovered their tunnel during a routine inspection of the prison on Monday.

Footage has now been released showing officers inside the tunnel, demonstrating how narrow the hole was.

The group of inmates were serving their time on the maximum and medium security wings of the prison while serving sentences for robbery, and were set to be released in 2021 and 2022.

Servicio Penitenciario Bonaerense

Following the failed attempt, however, the inmates were then charged with attempted evasion and split up, before being moved to seven different prisons.

Someone who made a better job of their escape was Italian mafia boss Rocco Morabito, who fled a prison in Uruguay while awaiting extradition.

According to Uruguay's interior ministry, the criminal - who has the nickname 'cocaine king of Milan' - escaped alongside three other inmates.

Morabito was the suspected head of Calabrian 'Ndrangheta - Italy's most powerful organised crime group, which is believed to have controlled as much as 80 percent of Europe's cocaine trade, the BBC reports.

Servicio Penitenciario Bonaerense

He was arrested in 2017, after living in Uruguay for 13 years using a false name. He had been awaiting extradition on charges of international drug trafficking.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said: "It is disconcerting and serious that a criminal like Rocco Morabito, boss of the 'Ndrangheta, managed to escape from a jail in Uruguay while he was waiting to be extradited to Italy.

"I make two commitments. First: to shed light on evasion procedures, asking for immediate explanations from the Montevideo government. Second: we will continue to hunt down Morabito, wherever he is, to throw him in jail as he deserves."

Featured Image Credit: Servicio Penitenciario Bonaerense

Topics: World News, Interesting, Argentina