Criminals who escaped from a Brazilian maximum security prison took a family hostage

Two convicts who escaped early Wednesday from the high-security Mossoro federal prison in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte broke into a house in the region on Friday evening, where more than 300 police officers are hunting for them. officers ordered food and watched news of the escape on cell phones and television.

The two fugitives, Rogerio da Silva Mendonça, known as Tatu, 36, and Deibson Carvalho Nascimento, known as Querubim, 34, are linked to the criminal group Comando Vermelho, CV, created decades ago in Rio de Janeiro, but which is now Saturday Valid throughout the country and even in neighboring countries.

The two criminals, jointly charged with more than 60 crimes and each still facing more than 70 years in prison, broke into the house shortly after 7:30 pm local time and 10:30 pm this Friday in Lisbon and only left. shortly after local midnight, more than three o’clock in the morning in the Portuguese capital. The family was held hostage for more than four hours, but police said none of the perpetrators used violence or made threats.

“They were dirty, they smelled bad and they were disoriented because they didn’t know the area and just wanted to eat,” one of the hostages told the police, in order to know exactly where they were and, above all, to observe what was happening. news about them. So the family had to go to news sites on their mobile phones and show the reports to the two fugitives, who also decided to watch Jornal Nacional on Globo TV to see what was being said about them.

While at the family’s home, which is located within a 15 km radius of the prison, where searches were carried out over three days, the criminals made several calls from the mobile phones of the family whose home they invaded, some of them in Rio. de Janeiro, January, probably for the leaders of the Red Command.

A few hours later, the two criminals left the house, taking with them plastic bags of food, cell phones of family members and chargers, but, curiously, they did not want any money or the car or motorcycle that were in the garage, preferring to continue their business. escape on foot.

The trespass confirms police suspicions that Rogerio and Deibson were remaining within the 15-kilometre search perimeter and that they had become lost, possibly walking in circles, and that police barriers had had an effect and prevented them from proceeding further.

Until this Friday, more than 300 agents from the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police and the Military Police of Rio Grande do Norte, supported by three helicopters, drones and tracking dogs, took part in the searches, but this Saturday the teams will be strengthened. additional federal police agents sent from Brasília and agents from the National Penitentiary Department’s Rapid Response Team.

The Mossoro prison from which the two escaped was considered escape-proof and is one of five maximum-security prisons in Brazil run by the central government. Rogerio and Deibson took advantage of the strange flaws of this type of prison, such as repair tools scattered everywhere, and managed to open a hole in their cells, get through six security barriers, and finally cut the wire fence surrounding the entire prison. prison area, also benefiting from the fact that some of the lights are turned off and some of the security cameras are also turned off or malfunctioning.