More than 300 Brazilian police officers, with state-of-the-art
cars, helicopters and drones
, and even Brazil's Minister of Justice continue this Saturday with 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 hidden in a thick forested region in the northeast of the country.
The authorities have as a clue the story of a
family that was taken hostage by the fugitives
after their escape.
The escape occurred on Wednesday in Mossoró, one of the five maximum security prisons in Brazil.
Since then, almost nothing is known about Rogério da Silva Mendonça, who is sentenced to 74 years in prison, and Deibson Cabral Nascimento, with sentences set at 81 years.
Until this Saturday at noon, the only news was the complaint from a family who said they had been assaulted 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 7:30 p.m. on Friday, and left. at 0.30 on Saturday, indicated
O Globo
.
There
they satisfied their basic needs
and tried to gather information to guide their escape.
The Police continue their search for two men who fled from the Mossoró federal prison.
Photo EFE
The complaint states that the fugitives fed themselves, prepared food for the journey and
read the news
about the operation to find them.
They also made phone calls.
They said they wanted to reach the neighboring state of Ceará, about 40 kilometers to the northwest.
They left on foot
, with money and two cell phones with their respective chargers.
With this data, the authorities reinforce the operation for which they also raised the alert in all the maximum security prisons in the country.
They feared that the escape would be replicated, for which the two fugitives used tools that were being used for repairs in the building.
The suspicion is that Da Silva Mendonça and Cabral Nascimento are in
a perimeter of about 15 kilometers around Mossoró
.
There they search for them with extensive deployment on the ground and in the air: drones with night vision and the ability to build heat maps were added to the three helicopters.
The operation is in a large rural area around Mossoró.
Photo EFE
The Brazilian Minister of Justice, 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 were the first escapes recorded in one of Brazil's five federal prisons, all of which are maximum security and where prisoners considered "highly dangerous" are housed, mostly members of criminal organizations.
Both fugitives are accused of belonging to the so-called
Red Command
, a powerful drug trafficking gang from Rio de Janeiro, which has tentacles in several South American countries.
The Mossoró federal prison, considered "maximum security" and which suffered the escape of two prisoners.
Photo EFE
They had been in Mossoró since September of last year, when they were transferred from another prison after having participated in a rebellion that ended with five deaths, three of them beheaded.
After the escape, authorities tightened confinement conditions in federal prisons, where visits were suspended and prisoners were ordered to remain in their cells.
In Brazil, according to official data, at the end of last year there were 832,300 people imprisoned, in a prison system that only has capacity for 600,000 detainees, of which about 1,500 are held in federal prisons.
With information from EFE