"Snatch" to freedom: the most daring escapes from Russian prisons. Monte Cristo is enviable: the most unusual prison escapes in recent decades Escapes from Russian prisons real stories
Francisco Herrera Argueta, nicknamed Don Chico, carefully plans to escape from prison. He put on a skirt, a wig and heels, rouged his cheeks and covered his nails with pink polish. The prisoner hoped that the guards would mistake him for a woman and let him go, but he was unlucky: his voice gave him away. collected unusual stories of prison escapes that required not only good preparation, but also amazing luck.
Fantastic Three
When a guard noticed a hole in the fence, it took the management of the British Parkhurst prison almost thirty minutes to find out who exactly was missing. Absent were prisoners Andrew Rodger, Kate Rose and . One of them was a demolition bomber, another was an experienced mechanic, and the third knew how to fly an airplane. The ideal team to escape from the dungeons on the island in the English Channel.
The trio had been planning their escape for a long time. The locksmith, from memory, made a copy of the chief warden's key, which opens almost every door, made a homemade pistol and welded a seven-meter steel stepladder from pipes. The latter was the most difficult: unlike a key and a pistol, you cannot hide a ladder in your pocket. Friends managed to give them ammunition and cash - 200 pounds sterling.
On the day of the escape, all three went to the gym with other prisoners. No one noticed when they separated from the group and disappeared behind the security door. After using the key several times to open the locked locks, the fugitives reached the fence, cut a hole in the mesh, and then climbed over the outer wall using a stepladder. Nobody stopped them. The guards learned about the escape only two and a half hours later.
It later emerged that the staff who were supposed to monitor the CCTV cameras were poorly trained. In addition, they often had to be distracted to perform other duties. There was no alarm either, although the management of the correctional institution had been trying to get funds for its installation for almost twenty years. Numerous complaints and requests did not yield results.
After the escape, chaos reigned in the prison. The guards didn't know what to do next or who to call. The walkie-talkies and flashlights had no batteries, and the only map of the area turned out to be a “blind” photocopy, unusable. “Such an escape could have happened at any time with the same chances of success,” the authors of the report prepared after investigating the incident concluded pessimistically.
Although belatedly, the police launched a search operation. For six days, 250 police officers with dogs searched the entire island, they searched for the fugitives from helicopters, but they disappeared into thin air. They were also not seen at the ferry that takes you to the British coast.
They had a different plan: they wanted to hijack the plane. Nothing prevented them from reaching the local airfield, but there their luck ran out. On the runway there was only a small sports Cessna, designed for two. Other planes were locked in hangars. The fugitives tried to get her at least, but nothing worked. Soon they were caught, and by pure chance: they were noticed by a supervisor returning from work to the city.
Dangerous cargo
American Richard McNair tried to rob a granary, killed a witness and received an unexpectedly severe punishment - two life sentences. It was then that his real talent was revealed: it turned out that McNair was very difficult to keep behind bars.
He made his first escape immediately after his arrest. When he was strapped to a chair, he managed to quietly fish chapstick out of his pocket, smeared it on his hands, slipped out of the handcuffs and ran away. Three investigators who were in the room rushed after him, but the pursuit did not work out. The first hit the door, the second tripped and broke his heel bone, and the third did not fully recover from knee surgery. McNair ran out into the street and was gone.
The luck was short-lived: an hour later he was spotted in the city center. When the building was surrounded by police, the fugitive climbed out of a third-floor window and jumped onto a nearby tree, but the branch broke. The fugitive fell to the ground, injured his back and ended up in the hands of law enforcement officers.
McNair was taken to North Dakota State Prison. There he founded a prison newspaper in order, under the guise of collecting material for articles, to study the correctional facility, look for security weaknesses and make useful contacts. He decided to escape again only a few years later.
One evening, McNair and a couple of acquaintances went to a prison movie show. There was no one else in the hall except them: the guards remained in the corridor, and the other prisoners were not interested in the film. The men did not hesitate: they removed the ceiling panels and, one by one, climbed into the ventilation, climbed through the pipes and found themselves on the street in one of the few places where there are no watchtowers. The setting sun made it difficult to notice them from the other side of the prison. The fugitives climbed over the fence without hindrance, jumped onto the roof of the meeting room, and from it onto the lawn. Freedom!
The first fugitive was caught a few hours later. The other was caught a few days later. McNair changed his appearance and hid for almost ten months, but in the end the police caught up with him. This time he was sent to prison strict regime. Liberties like the prison newspaper were not welcomed there. McNair got a job in a prison factory and spent his days repairing mail bags. It was there that he hatched a new plan.
When the guards left for lunch, McNair made a hiding place on a pallet with ready-made bags and hid inside. To avoid suffocation, he took a breathing tube with him. Soon workers arrived with a lift and, without noticing the prisoner, took his pallet to an unguarded warehouse. McNair waited until there was no one around, climbed out of the pile of bags and went free.
Video: wesawthat... / YouTube
A few hours later he was stopped by a local policeman. McNair calmly lied that his name was , he had come to his brother and was jogging. “Someone has escaped here,” the policeman said amiably. McNair swore that despite his physical resemblance, he was definitely not a fugitive. After a couple of phone calls, the police officer wished him luck and let him go. The criminal was again saved by amazing luck.
McNair eluded police for more than a year. After his capture, he was sent to the famous prison in Colorado, which has a reputation as a second Alcatraz. A new escape is unlikely. However, who knows? “This is a very patient and calculating fraudster,” says Patrick Branson, the warden who was guarding him. “Of course, there are plenty of scammers behind bars, but they are all not very lucky, otherwise they wouldn’t be here.” McNair differs from them in his absolute fixation on flight."
Air support
“You catch them once, twice, but by the third time they already know what they are doing,” Parisian police representative Thierry Bouluk justified himself when he escaped for the fourth time. The only thing he loved more than escapes was bank robberies. In one interview, the famous French criminal said that his definition of the word “prison” does not coincide with the dictionary. He believes that prisons are places from which one must escape.
For his first escape, Vojour stole cheese and hid it for several months until he had the opportunity to make an imprint of the key on the guard's belt. He pulled off another escape using a homemade structure made from a bar of soap, a battery and nail clippers. Vojour managed to convince the guards that it was a pistol, and even took several hostages.
Upon release, the criminal married a girl named Nadine. She tried to convince him to quit crime and live honestly, but to no avail: a year later he started another robbery and ended up in jail again. To reduce the risk of another escape, he was transferred to a different prison every few months. It didn’t help, because this time it was not Vojour himself who was preparing the escape, but his wife.
She attended pilot courses under a false name for three years. On the appointed day, she rented a helicopter and personally took it to the Santé prison in Paris, where Vaujour was imprisoned. Meanwhile, he scared the warden with a peach disguised as a grenade and climbed onto the roof. Nadine, ignoring radio warnings, flew up to the prison building and threw a rope to her husband. A few minutes later, the helicopter landed near the student dormitories, a woman and two men jumped out, moved into a waiting car and disappeared.
The police fully assumed that after such a daring escape the criminal would lie low for a long time, but they underestimated Vojour. Just a few months later, the robber could not resist, went on the case again and during a shootout received a bullet in the head. He survived, but fell into a coma. When he woke up in the prison hospital, it took long training to regain control of his partially paralyzed body. However, this did not stop him from marrying a second time.
Vojour persuaded his new wife to follow in Nadine’s footsteps and also learn to fly a helicopter, but she was not so lucky and after two attempts to rescue her husband she ended up in prison. The criminal had to serve the entire sentence. When he was released, he was asked what was the hardest thing. “You can’t escape,” Vaujour replied.
Escape from prison is not a trivial matter. To escape from a place where everything is arranged in such a way as to prevent this, you need to show courage and ingenuity. Great value has also luck.
Escape Guru Jack Sheppard
Jack, an English thief who engaged in robbery and robbery in London in the 18th century, was a true master of prison escape. This is what he became famous for - he was immortalized in the works of Daniel Defoe and the Beggar's Opera by John Gay. Obviously, he was not the most careful criminal, he was caught as many as five times, and escaped four times. And he did it in an original way every time - once in the middle of the night he “silently” cut through the ceiling, so that the whole of London woke up. When the guards discovered him, Jack simply turned on the Buck Bath, pointing in the opposite direction and shouting, “Look over there!” And then he escaped, taking advantage of the confusion of the guards. Another time he slipped away with his wife, who was imprisoned for complicity. They broke the bars and climbed down using a makeshift rope woven from clothes and linen.
Jack managed to escape even from the most guarded cell, chained. He dug out a nail somewhere and made it into a master key for handcuffs. Using chains, he broke through the barred doors and disappeared into the darkness, this time without waking anyone.
For the fifth and final time, he was caught drunk in a bar with stolen diamonds in his hands. Before the execution, the king ordered a portrait of this “Robin Hood of the new era” to be drawn, and twenty thousand people came to the execution itself. Subsequently, his friends even took the body to the doctor, hoping that this time he managed to deceive everyone.
Soap heads
Escape from famous prison Alcatraz for a long time was considered impossible. Many tried, there were 14 recorded escapes that did not lead to anything. Almost 40 people took part in them; most of the rebel prisoners were caught, killed or perished at sea.
The only successful escape from this island prison occurred on June 11, 1962. Three prisoners - Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers - made models of their own heads from soap, real hair and toilet paper. The security guards conducting the inspection were misled and did not raise the alarm.
While the jailers were looking at the soap heads, the trio of fugitives were already crawling along the ventilation shaft, the entrance to which they had previously drilled with a homemade drill. Then, using one of the chimneys, they climbed onto the roof. They closed all the entrances through which the fugitives crawled. There are two versions of how Morris and the Anglins descended to the water. According to one, they had a rope prepared in advance, according to the other, they climbed down the drainpipe. Waiting for them on the water were rafts made of rubber raincoats inflated with an accordion. They sailed on them across the San Francisco Bay. Nobody saw this trio again. American lawyers tend to believe that the fugitives drowned, but no confirmation of their death was ever found.
Escape of an Intellectual
Alfred Hinds received 12 years for armed robbery and managed to escape from prison three times during this time. Mainly due to his excellent knowledge of English criminal law.
The first time he somehow managed to escape from Nottingham prison, despite the locked doors and a 6-meter wall. After another capture, he himself sued Scotland Yard, claiming that he was arrested illegally. While law enforcement agencies were resolving the issue, observing all formalities, he managed to prepare for the upcoming trial and fled straight from the “House of Justice” in London, locking two guards in the toilet. True, they managed to catch him after five hours.
Finding himself behind bars again, he again rushed to prove his innocence. In 1958, without waiting for a positive answer from the court, he fled by making a duplicate of the keys.
While free, Hinds continued to write appeals to members of parliament and letters to newspapers, insisting on his innocence. He was caught again. There were no new chances to escape. But previous exploits were enough to become a real celebrity. After serving his sentence, he was invited to become a member of the Mensa organization, which only accepts people with a high level of intelligence.
Overcoming "silence"
The most notorious escape from a Russian prison can be considered the escape from “Sailor’s Silence” by Alexander Solonik. One of the most famous figures of the 90s, Solonik was a former special forces soldier and professional assassin. He was called "killer N1". Solonik’s detention was not easy; he started shooting at the Moscow Petrovsko-Razumovsky market, killing three police officers and one security guard. With such a “trail,” life in prison did not promise to be rosy, especially considering the fact that at the trial he also admitted to killing crime bosses. Both the police and criminals wanted him dead.
The escape stories are so thrilling and dangerous that they are all worthy of Hollywood adaptations (and some have already received them). Perhaps that's why we don't care that these criminals are bank robbers, murderers, or worse. What's important to us is the story, the great escape, the day when a man who thought he would never be free again escaped... even if only for a short time.
A 49-year-old criminal named Choi Gap Bok was arrested on September 12, 2012. Six days later, he successfully escaped from his cell at a police station in the South Korean city of Daegu. On the morning of the sixth day, Gap Bok asked for cream. After the three guards had fallen asleep, the prisoner slathered himself in cream and slipped out of the food opening at the bottom of the bars. Gap Bok was only 164cm tall and had studied yoga for over 20 years. The food opening was 15 centimeters high and 45 centimeters wide. To gain some time and fool the guards, Gap Bok covered the pillows with a blanket. Upon discovering the loss, police and journalists were shocked. By the way, 22 years earlier, Gap Bok escaped from a convoy bus on the way to prison. He simply slipped through the bars on the bus windows. After escaping in 2012, he tried to steal a car, but police set up roadblocks and Gap Bok had to flee to the mountains. Although he was pursued by helicopters, dogs and people, he moved exclusively at night, so it was impossible to catch him. He ended up robbing the hut and leaving an apology note inside, signed "Falsely Accused Thief Choi Gap Bok." Once the note was discovered, tracking him down was no longer difficult. He was caught a couple of days later and transferred to a prison where the food openings were much smaller.
Pascal Payet is a French bank robber and murderer who gained notoriety for his involvement in escapes using stolen helicopters. And not in one, not in two, but in three. After his arrest in 1999, Payet was sent to prison in the French village of Luynes. In 2001, he made his first escape with Frederic Impocco using a hijacked helicopter. He spent a couple of years free, but in 2003 he hijacked another helicopter, returned to Luynes and helped the remaining members of his gang escape: Frank Perletto, Michel Valero and Eric Alboreo. The daring undertaking led to his capture, and this time he was placed under the strictest surveillance. He was not only put in solitary confinement, but was also transferred from prison to prison every 6 months. Despite precautions, on July 14, 2007, Bastille Day, four accomplices hijacked another helicopter, landed it on the roof of the prison, and Payet was once again free. However, he didn’t have time to really enjoy it, because a couple of months later he was caught in Spain. On at the moment It is unknown which prison Payet is serving his sentence in, and French authorities have no plans to share this information.
This is one of the most outrageous escapes in US history - six prisoners waiting death penalty, escaped from a supposedly “impregnable” prison. They simply walked out the main doors. Led by notorious killers, James and Linwood Briley, six men plotted their escape for months. After studying the guards' schedules and habits, they found the perfect moment. The escape began on May 31, 1984, when prisoners attacked and overpowered guards as they made their rounds. After changing into guard uniforms and putting on helmets, the prisoners moved towards the exit. To distract the other guards, they covered the TV with a sheet, placed it on a gurney and announced that they were removing a bomb from the death row. For added effect, one of the prisoners sprayed a fire extinguisher as they were walking out the door. Their disappearance was noticed only half an hour later.
On December 13, 2000, seven prisoners shocked everyone by escaping from a maximum security prison in Texas. Around 11:20 a.m., prisoners began attacking civilian employees, guards, and inmates. While one person was distracting the victim, the second one attacked her from behind. They took clothes, identification documents and money, after which they tied up the victims, gagged them and hid them. Disguised, three prisoners headed to the observation tower, posing as video surveillance specialists. Meanwhile, the remaining four prisoners called the tower to distract the attention of the guards. Three disguised prisoners attacked the guards on the tower and stole weapons. Four prisoners, meanwhile, stole a prison truck, met the trio at the main gate, and so the Texas Seven rode off into the sunset. Instead of lying low, they went all out and robbed several stores. During one of the robberies, police officer Aubrey Hawkins died. A month later, the Texas Seven were caught and the leader, George Rivas, was charged with Aubrey's murder and executed in 2012.
Henri Charrière was a French criminal with a butterfly tattoo on his chest. In October 1931 he was accused of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison and 10 years of hard labor. He spent some time in prison in France, after which he was transferred to the Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni prison in Guiana. He escaped from this prison in 1933 with two other prisoners, but they were recaptured after a shipwreck. Charrière fled again and was sheltered by an Indian tribe, with whom he remained for several months. When he left the tribe, he was recaptured and transported to Devil's Island, where he spent two years in solitary confinement. Conditions on the island were terrible, prison violence was rampant, and tropical diseases could kill anyone. He repeatedly tried to escape, but each time he was caught and severely punished. After 11 years of imprisonment, Charrière finally managed to escape. He filled a couple of bags with coconuts and jumped off the cliff into the water. Using sacks of coconuts as a life preserver, he wandered at sea for three days until he washed up on land. He was caught and sentenced to prison in Venezuela, and a year later he was released and given citizenship. Stories about Charrière's escapes are described in his autobiography "Papillon" ("The Moth").
In 1987, one of the robberies ended unsuccessfully for Richard Lee McNair. He killed a man named Jerry Teese and shot another man four more times, but he survived. He was found and sentenced to two life sentences and 30 years for robbery. But immediately on the day of his arrest, McNair escaped his handcuffs using chapstick and fled the station. He was caught trying to hide in a tree, but the branch broke off and he fell to the ground. He was taken to prison where he began digging an escape tunnel, but was unable to finish as he was transferred to another prison. In 1992, he escaped from a North Dakota prison through a ventilation shaft, and this time enjoyed ten months of freedom. Although McNair had already proven his daring, it was his third escape attempt that made him a legend. In April 2006, McNair hid in a mail container and sent himself out of prison. The package arrived at its destination 75 minutes later, and McNair cut himself out of the box. He fled to Canada, where he hid for a year. In October 2007, he was caught driving a stolen pickup truck. He is now serving his sentence in a maximum security prison in Florida, where he has virtually no chance of escape.
In 1943, German prison camp inmate Roger "Big X" Bushell planned one of the most famous escapes in history. The plan to free 200 prisoners of war was to dig three hundred-meter tunnels at the same time, which were nicknamed Tom, Dick and Harry. Stalag Luft III was not your typical POW camp. Here prisoners played basketball, volleyball, fencing and gardening. They read books, performed plays every other week and received a decent education. But a prison is a prison, and with such an abundance of tools, it is not surprising that someone tried to escape. 600 prisoners began digging tunnels in 1943. Squadron Leader Bob Nelson came up with an air pump that allowed prisoners to work safely underground. While work on the tunnels was going on, the prisoners bribed the German guards, and they brought them civilian clothes, documents, German uniforms and maps. Work on Dick stopped when the Germans erected a building right on the site where the exit was planned. In September 1943, Tom was discovered, and Harry became the last hope. The escape began on the moonless night of March 24, 1945. Oddly enough, the entrance to the tunnel froze, delaying the escape by almost two hours. Because of this and the new guard, only 10 prisoners per hour could go down into the tunnel, so the escape progressed slowly. Of the 200 prisoners, only 76 managed to escape. The 77th was caught as he ran towards the forest. Of the 76 who escaped, 73 were caught. Hitler ordered everyone executed, but in the end 17 were allowed to return to Stalag Luft III, and three were sent to a concentration camp. The rest were executed. Of the three who managed to escape, two ended up on a Swedish ship, and one reached the British consulate in Spain through France. A famous film starring Steven McQueen was made based on this story.
It was considered impossible to escape from Maze Prison - it was called the most escape-proof prison in Europe. However, on September 25, 1983, the largest prison break in British history took place here. Of course, as in other successful escapes, the prisoners began planning it months in advance. Two prisoners, Bobby "Big Bob" Story and Henry Kelly, worked as orderlies, which allowed them to study the prison for security weaknesses. Both were members of the IRA, and the organization helped them smuggle six pistols into prison. All that was left to do was wait. At 14:30 the escape began. The prisoners used the carried weapons to attack the jailers and prevent them from raising the alarm. The guards were taken hostage, some were stabbed, others were shot in the stomach, and one of the guards survived a gunshot wound to the head. Within 20 minutes, the prisoners had full control of their block, but they had to wait for transport. At 15:25 a food truck arrived. The driver and another guard were taken hostage, and 37 prisoners climbed into the truck, taking with them the guards' uniforms and weapons. At the main gate of the prison, prisoners took several more hostages. Officer James Ferris attempted to raise the alarm, but was overtaken and stabbed three times. The soldier on the tower reported what was happening to the combat team while others tried to block the gate with their vehicles. The prisoners opened fire on them, then captured one of the officers along with the car and drove it towards the gate. Unfortunately for the prisoners, the IRA auxiliary team was five minutes late and they were forced to steal cars and flee for their lives. A total of 35 prisoners escaped, only one was caught.
On June 11, 1962, one of the most infamous prison escapes in US history occurred. Not only were the fugitives not caught, but the scale of their escape shocked prison guards, local police and the FBI. About six months before the escape, brothers John and Clarence Anglin, along with Frank Morris (all three bank robbers), found several blades on the prison floor. Using these blades, they began to expand the ventilation shafts in their cells (they even built a homemade drill from a vacuum cleaner engine). At the same time, they purchased 50 raincoats from their fellow inmates to build a raft on which they could cross the icy San Francisco Bay. They also sculpted their own heads out of papier-mâché to confuse the guards - they even glued real hair to them, which they got from the prison hairdresser. On the night of their escape, they laid their heads on the beds and slipped out through dug tunnels. Three prisoners climbed down from the roof of Alcatraz along a 15-meter wall, inflated a homemade raft and lowered it into the water. The guards discovered the false heads only in the morning, and immediately began a search. Although the remains of the raft, oars, and personal belongings of the prisoners were recovered from the water, the FBI (after 17 years of investigation) ruled that the three men most likely drowned during the escape. However, in 2012, Anglin's family said the brothers survived. The family claimed to have received phone calls and even a Christmas card from John Anglin, and a close friend allegedly saw the brothers in Brazil and even took a photo.
Today, Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is perhaps one of the most notorious famous people in the world. “Public Enemy Number One” topped the rankings of both the FBI and Forbes, all thanks to the influence of his Sinaloa drug cartel. In 1993, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in a Mexican prison. He immediately began plotting his escape, offering bribes to the guards, police and support workers, many of whom he hired. On January 19, 2001, a guard simply opened Guzman's cell, he hid in a cart with dirty laundry, and he was taken straight through the main entrance. Helper Javier Camberos (who was later imprisoned for facilitating the escape) took Guzman away from prison in the trunk of a car. El Chapo was caught again in 2014, but he only served a year. On July 11, 2015, Guzman disappeared from his cell. At a depth of three meters under his cell, the guards discovered a tunnel one and a half kilometers long, 1.7 meters high and almost a meter wide. They also found the motorcycle that El Chapo apparently rode through the tunnel. On January 8, 2016, he was caught again and returned to prison. His daughter, Rosa Izila Guzman Ortiz, recently said her father crossed the Mexican border twice in 2015 to visit his family in California.
We present to your attention a selection of the 10 most incredible escapes from prisons and concentration camps, some of which even became the plot for a couple of Hollywood blockbusters!
Pascal Payette: escaped from prison three times using a helicopter!
Pascal Payette, or Kalashnikov Pat, went to prison for murder during a robbery of a cash-in-transit vehicle. In 2001, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison and since then managed to escape from prison three times using a helicopter! The last time, in 2007, a helicopter hijacked half an hour earlier from the Cannes resort along with its pilot landed on the roof of the prison, from which three of his seriously armed accomplices jumped out in search of Payette. He flew off the roof with his masked accomplices. On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea they released the pilot and since then no one has heard anything about Pascal or his accomplices
John Dillinger: Escaped from prison with a fake gun made of wood and painted black with shoe polish.
The legendary Johnny D, who by the way was played by his namesake Johnny Depp in the recent Hollywood premiere, is an American bank robber of the 30s, he robbed at least a couple of dozen banks and escaped from prison twice. Dillinger spent some time in prison in Michigan, Indiana, until he was paroled in 1933. Four months later, he was again in prison - this time in Lima, Ohio, from where he was rescued by his armed gang, killing his jailer, Sheriff Jesse Serber. Most of the gang was captured that same year in Tucson, Arizona, during a shootout at the Historic Congress Hotel. Dillinger was taken to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana. He was accused of attempting to murder police officer William O'Malley during a bank robbery in East Chicago, Indiana, carried out almost immediately after Dillinger's escape from prison.
On March 3, 1934, Johnny D escaped from Crown Point (a prison that was considered impossible to escape from at the time), which was guarded a huge amount police officers and military personnel of their national guard. The newspapers immediately reported that Dillinger had escaped from prison with a fake pistol made of wood and painted black with shoe polish. Using this gun, he forced the guard to open the door of his cell, and then took two hostages, gathered all the guards in his cell and locked them, and he calmly left the prison.
Alfie Hinds: Escaped the law three times, once by simply locking guards in a toilet.
Alfie Hinds is a British man who has escaped from the law over and over again, three times in total. For the fourth time, he left prison legally, having served his entire sentence. Hinds gained the reputation of a famous thief - by the way, his father actually died, being punished for armed robbery. In 1953, Alfie Hines was arrested for a high-profile jewelry store robbery, from which $90,000 in proceeds were never recovered. In court, he pleaded not guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. After Alfie somehow inexplicably escaped from behind closed doors and a 6-meter prison wall, the public dubbed him Gooddini Hinds (in honor of the famous magician and illusionist). He led an honest life as a builder and decorator until Scotland Yard detectives finally tracked him down in 1956 and sent him back to prison after 248 days of searching. After his arrest, Hinds turned the law against the authorities, accusing the jailers of an illegal arrest and successfully used this incident to escape from the courthouse. When two guards took him to the toilet and removed his handcuffs so that he could do his business, he shoved them into the toilet and locked it from the outside with a padlock (his accomplices had previously built a wooden screw into the door with a rod bent into a ring so that he could do it). Hinds was captured at the airport only hours later. He made his third escape from Helmsford Prison. He then returned to Ireland, where he lived and worked as a car salesman for two years. He was captured again when he was stopped by a police officer for driving an unregistered vehicle. This time he also used his intelligence to find a loophole in the law - at that time, escaping from prison was not considered a misdemeanor, so additional term they didn’t add it to him. So Alfie Hinds was sentenced to 6 years in prison for robbing a jewelery shop in 1953, plus he won a libel suit against the police officer who arrested him, and after his release he spent the rest of his life as a mini-celebrity, selling his story to the News of the World for $40,000.
Julian Shotard: escaped from prison by clinging to the bottom of the van that brought him to prison
In 2009, French arsonist Julian Chautard escaped prison in a bold and brazen manner. He managed to escape from a group of prisoners who had just arrived at Pentonville prison in north London. While other prisoners were being processed inside, Shotard managed to duck behind a prison van that had just brought them from Shersbrooke Crown Court (where Shotard was sentenced to seven years in prison). Julian successfully escaped the prison minutes later, clinging to the bottom of the same van. Later, he himself came to the police and surrendered to the authorities.
Frank Morris, Clarence and John Anglin are the only prisoners who managed to escape from Alcatraz
Over the 29 years of operation of the Alcatraz prison, attempts were made to escape from it many times. According to prison records, there were a total of 14 escape attempts involving 36 prisoners (two of them twice), 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during the escape, three were lost at sea and were never heard from again. - their bodies were never found.
But on June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin successfully executed one of the most intricate escape plans ever devised. Morris and the Anglins climbed up the ventilation shaft and climbed out onto the roof through one of the chimneys. The trio then climbed down the roof and floated off the island on rubber rafts. The next morning, police searched for the fugitives in Alcatraz, but were unsuccessful.
The prison warden explained that the prisoners were not immediately captured because they placed fake heads, made from a mixture of soap, toilet paper and real hair, on their beds, which fooled prison officers conducting nightly inspections. Morris and the Anglin brothers subsequently disappeared without a trace and are still wanted by the FBI, although they are believed to have drowned in San Francisco Bay while trying to swim away from the island.
Billy Hayes: escaped from Turkish prison and became a writer
Sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling in 1970, the 22-year-old American was initially sentenced to four years and two months in a Turkish prison; a couple of weeks before the end of his sentence, he learned that the authorities had decided to sentence him to life in prison, so he decided that he had to escape. After 6 months of planning, he got into a fight with a guard, stole his uniform, and, taking with him $2,000 that his father had smuggled into the prison in a photo album, Hayes stole a rowboat and made it to shore. Hoping to reach Greece, Hayes dyed his blond hair black and headed for the border. Barefoot, hungry and without a passport, he swam across the river and walked for many miles. When Hayes finally came across an armed soldier, Billy thought he had lost his chance at freedom, but the soldier started yelling at him. Greek, which meant that he had crossed the border after all. Ultimately, Hayes returned safely to the United States, and then wrote an autobiographical book about his life in prison and his escape for the Midnight Express publication.
The Texas Seven: escaped from a maximum security prison using an extremely elaborate plan.
On December 13, 2000, seven inmates of the John Connally Unit, the most secure prison in Texas' Karnes County, escaped using a complex scheme. Using several well-planned ploys, the seven criminals subdued and locked up nine prison guards, four correctional officers, and three uninvolved prisoners. The escape occurred during the quietest period of the day, when surveillance of the maintenance area was reduced to a minimum - during lunch and during counting. Most of these tricks involved one of the criminals calling out to someone while the other hit the unsuspecting person in the head from behind. As soon as the victim was neutralized, the criminals took some of the clothes, tied her up and locked her in the transformer room. The attackers stole their victims' clothing, credit cards, and identification cards. The group also impersonated prison officials over the phone and made false calls to deflect authorities' suspicions. After this, three members of the group, wearing stolen civilian clothes, made their way to the rear gate of the prison. They pretended to be electricians who were supposed to install video monitors. One guard at the gatehouse was taken down, after which the trio raided the guard tower and stole numerous weapons. Meanwhile, four other criminals called the guards of this same tower tower to distract them. Then they stole a pickup truck service personnel, in which they drove up to the back gate, picked up their comrades and left the prison. A year later, they were all tracked down and caught, which was facilitated by the TV show America's Most Wanted.
Prisoners of “Rat Hell”: the most famous (and successful) escape during the American civil war
Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba: escaped from Auschwitz, and later wrote a report on this Nazi camp that later saved many lives
Wetzler was a Slovak Jew, and one of the few Jews who managed to escape from the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. Wetzler fled with a fellow Jew named Rudolf Vrba. Using the camp's dungeon, at 2 pm on Friday, April 7, 1944—Easter Eve—the two men hid inside a wooden pile that was intended to be used to build the "Mexico" section for the new arrivals. She was behind the barbed wire of Birkenau's inner perimeter, but in the outer perimeter guards remained vigilant all day. Other prisoners placed boards around the sunken area to hide the men, and then sprayed the area with sharp Russian tobacco soaked in gasoline to fool the dogs. Wetzler and Vrba hid for 4 nights to avoid being caught again.
On April 10, wearing Dutch suits, coats, and boots that they had taken from the camp, they moved south, paralleling the Sola River and reaching the Polish border with Slovakia after 133 kilometers. They found their way thanks to a page torn from a children's atlas that Vrba found in a warehouse.
Wetzler and Vrba later became famous for a report in which they described the internal structure of the Auschwitz camp - the layout of the camp site, the design of the gas chambers, crematoria and, most convincingly, the label on the Zyklon gas canister. These 32 pages were the first detailed report on Auschwitz to reach the West and which the Allies regarded as credible. The report is said to have saved 120,000 lives.
Dieter Dengler: one of the few soldiers who managed to escape from a prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam War
In addition to him, such an escape was also achieved by Captain Charles Fredrik Klasmann, who was shot and captured, only to later escape with 6 other inhabitants of the camp, five of whom were never found, and Nick Rowe, who escaped from the Vietnam Congress camp and wrote a book about it about "Five years to freedom"
There is a law, and there are people who break it and, as a result, go to prison to serve their sentence. But there are prisoners who cannot sit there, and sooner or later they decide to escape from prison. Some come back with a new sentence, and some have not yet been caught.
1. Victor Figueroa
Maximum security prison in Mineville "Moria Shock"
On February 6, 1997, a convict serving from one to four years for drug possession was supposed to go to the canteen, but on the way he decided that he would eat in freedom. Once his absence was noticed, authorities searched the area, but the trail went cold.
Authorities believe Figueroa died during the escape, most likely from a fall through a mine shaft near the facility. Everyone who worked there, as well as his relatives and friends, no one saw him again, but this does not mean that he died. This suggests that, most likely, he was smart enough not to appear in front of people who would somehow help catch him. He is the only prisoner who managed to escape from this prison.
2. Glen Chambers
Polk City Maximum Security Prison "Polk"
This guy managed to escape twice. The first time was unsuccessful, which is logical, given that he had to escape a second time. On July 3, 1975, two days after he was sentenced to death, Chambers, along with an accomplice, organized and successfully escaped from the city's county jail, not far from his home. But they learn from mistakes, and therefore his second escape was more successful. He behaved in an exemplary manner so that the attitude towards him would become more loyal, and he succeeded: he was transferred to general position and even began to assign me to different jobs. And on one of these days, while he was making all sorts of furniture, he managed to persuade some prisoners to put him and her in the truck that was taking her away. So I left. Then there were rumors that he was seen with his family once after his escape, but the family denied this, which is logical, because he is wanted in two countries - the USA and Mexico.
3. Leonard Moses
Florence Maximum Security Prison
He was serving a life sentence for murder in connection with the 1968 Pittsburgh riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, but he asked for time off and was temporarily released and escorted to his grandmother's funeral. During the funeral, he and his friends bombarded the venue with Molotov cocktails, thanks to which they successfully escaped during the commotion. He escaped and has never been found to this day. On the official website of law enforcement agencies, you can still earn a good amount of money for reliable information that would contribute to his arrest. So if you don't know where to go in the summer, go there. Maybe you'll see something.
4. Vasilis Paleokostas
Korydallos maximum security prison
While serving a 25-year sentence for kidnapping and robbery in a high-security Greek prison, Vassilis Paleokostas managed to escape in 2006 by helicopter, but was soon caught and returned to prison. He sat and sat and remembered that there was a helicopter - and just like that he escaped with its help in broad daylight. The helicopter flew up to the prison, dropped the rope ladder and flew away - it’s simple. But the accomplice was caught a few months later, and main character remains at large. A few years later there was a chase, but even in that he managed to escape and wound a policeman. No more information appeared on him.
5. George Wright
Bayside Prison
In August 1970, he and his assistants simply climbed over the gate and escaped, stealing a police car. They had an idea to hijack a plane with hostages in order to get a ransom. They succeeded, released the hostages (all except the pilots) and decided to fly to Algeria to escape. But this would be too simple if we did not live on planet Earth. There they were greeted clearly not as they expected: the money was taken, the plane was returned and detained. But Algeria did not care about the fugitive criminals, so after a few days they were thrown out onto the street. Disillusioned with the African country, the criminal ended up in Portugal, which he was incredibly happy about when, 40 years later, he was found and arrested by American intelligence services. But Portugal does not extradite its citizens to other countries, and George still received citizenship. Still alive, enjoying himself there now in Portugal, while you go to work.
6. Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin
The famous Alcatraz prison
This story was left for dessert, since it is more or less known, but not the most boring. The guys did a great job to escape. They studied the plans of the prison, the shift changes of the guards, got hold of tools, even built their own stuffed animals with hair from a local hairdresser pasted onto their heads, so that during their nightly rounds the guards would not suspect anything. They decided to flee on June 11, 1962. They crawled through a hole in the wall, after which they blocked it with bricks so as not to show it. We climbed out onto the roof through a ventilation pipe, went down to the water through a drainpipe and sailed away using improvised boats made from improvised means - clothes and plywood. After which they were never found. And although after this escape, corpses were found from time to time in this bay, all DNA tests or other factors indicated that it was not them. Now this prison is closed due to the fact that it is very inconvenient to deliver anything there, since it has to be done by water.
