300 police officers, cutting-edge drones and a hostage situation: this is how they search for escaped prisoners from a maximum security prison in Brazil

More than 300 Brazilian police officers, with cars, helicopters and latest generation drones, and the Minister of Justice of Brazil also continues this Saturday the search for the two prisoners who escaped from a maximum security federal prison, the first escape from a prison of this type in that country. They are presumed to be hidden in a densely forested region in the north-east of the country. The authorities have as a clue the story of a family taken hostage by fugitives after his escape.

The escape occurred Wednesday in Mossoró, one of Brazil’s five maximum security prisons. Since then, almost nothing has been known about Rogério da Silva Mendonça, sentenced to 74 years in prison, and Deibson Cabral Nascimento, with a sentence set at 81 years. Until this Saturday at noon the only news was the report of a family who claimed to have been attacked by criminals linked to the Red Command.

According to that version, Da Silva Mendonça and Cabral Nascimento entered a rural house, near the prison (located in the state of Río Grande do Norte, in the coastal area of ​​central Brazil), at 7.30pm on Friday, and left at 0am: 30 on Saturday, he indicated O globe. Over there satisfied their basic needs and tried to gather information to guide their escape.

The complaint states that the fugitives fed themselves, prepared food for the journey and they read the news about the operation to find them. They also made some phone calls. They said they wanted to reach the neighboring state of Ceará, about 40 kilometers to the northwest. They left on footwith money and two cell phones with their respective chargers.

With this data the authorities strengthen the operation for which they have also launched the alert in all the maximum security prisons in the country. They feared that the escape might happen again, so the two escapees used tools that were used for repairs to the building.

The suspicion is that Da Silva Mendonça and Cabral Nascimento are there a perimeter of approximately 15 kilometers around Mossoró. There they look for them with a large deployment on the ground and in the air: drones with night vision and the ability to build heat maps have been added to the three helicopters.

Brazilian Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski will join the work of the security forces in the next few hours.

Brazil on alert due to the escape of the two most dangerous prisoners

These are the first escapes recorded in one of the five federal prisons in Brazil, all of which are maximum security and where prisoners considered “highly dangerous”, mostly members of criminal organizations, are locked up.

Both fugitives are accused of belonging to the so-called Commando Vermelhoa powerful drug trafficking gang from Rio de Janeiro, which has tentacles in several South American countries.

They had been in Mossoró since September last year, when they were transferred from another prison after participating in a rebellion that ended with five deaths, three of whom were beheaded.

After the escape, authorities tightened conditions of confinement in federal prisons, where visits were suspended and prisoners were ordered to remain in cells.

In Brazil, according to official data, 832,300 people were detained at the end of last year, in a prison system that can only hold 600,000 inmates, of which around 1,500 are in federal prisons.