BBC NEWS
Thirty-two prisoners have broken out of three jails in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz.
The break-outs happened almost simultaneously with prisoners overpowering the guards and forcing them to open the doors.
Mexican officials said 14 of the fugitives had already been recaptured.
Security at Mexican prisons is notoriously weak, with guards often intimidated or bribed by drug gangs operating inside and outside the jails.
Soldiers and marines have been deployed to search for the remaining 18 fugitives.
Broken system
The break-outs happened in the early hours of Monday morning.
Sixteen inmates escaped from Dupont Ostion jail in Coatzacoalcos, 14 from La Toma in Amatlan de los Reyes, and two from the Cosamaloapan prison.
Police are checking all 17 prisons in Veracruz state for signs of another break-out plan.
Veracruz state official Gerardo Buganza Salmeron said prison authorities and guards at the three jails where the break-outs happened would be investigated.
The Mexican prison system is struggling to cope with an influx of offenders arrested in a campaign against drug cartels.
The largest jail-break so far was last December when more than 140 prisoners escaped from a prison in Nuevo Laredo, in northern Tamaulipas state.
Prison officials who refuse to be bribed by the country's powerful drug gangs sometimes end up dead.
In May, the deputy governor of a prison in the northern state of Durango was murdered.
His dismembered body was found in a plastic box inside a car abandoned near the prison where he worked.
I say put the warden and the guards on duty in that jail
ReplyDeleteZetas? When you see the Marines surrender, once you get to jail you can break out.. Why do they even let them surrender? The ARMY should adapt a no surrender policy, if the civil rights people bitch too much they should just adopt a zeta and take him home. I am sure he will be a very productive member in his adoptive family :S
ReplyDeleteDesperate times call for desperate measures.
Is there not one aspect of Mexico that isn't corrupt? In the US it is "police corruption" for an officer to accept a free donut! I don't like cops as much as the next guy (who doesn't like cops), but I'd bet that most of them adhere to that rule! WTF, Mexico?!?!?! Are you guys building prisons out of Legos and Silly Putty? To have a 'decent' society, a greater part of that society must be honest and stand together for the greater good. Mexico seems to be lacking in this. Some of the best people I know are Mexican, and I'm half, but at some point the people must rise together and knock this shit off!!!!
ReplyDeleteMexico needs to call this a war and just make massive prison camps and throw all these assholes there... No judge, no rights nothing...
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing, knowing the Mexican legal system, the ones that deserve that treatment will get out, and that camp will get filled with scape goats..
While there are billions being made supplying drugs to comfortable north americans, the cartels will wield enormous power, until the flow of money stops they will buy who they like and north americans should appreciate that since there the dollar is god
ReplyDeleteAll those honest Marines and Officers killed in capturing these animals, and for what? So they can easily bribe a jailer and walk out of prison. This is a very sad time for Mexico. Arm your self Mexico!! It is only going to get worse.
ReplyDelete@10:51PM,
ReplyDeleteYou don't like cops? (As much as the next guy)..what kind of statement is that? On one hand your complaining about the cops and corruption, and at the same time you state you don't like cops, which translates you don't support law enforcement. So, why should you care if the police are corrupt or if some prisoners escape. You talk about society needing to be "honest" and "decent" but at the same time you clearly lack respect for cops..you must be really young..the young are usually pretty ignorant and often times put there foot in their mouths..
I always have wondered, (if the prisons are segregated by cartels/gangs,) If they capture some zetas why don't they put them in the same cell where the c.d.g are??? And viceversa??? Make the prison be somewhere the criminals are afraid to go, not a place where they feel like they are just at home with their homies!!
ReplyDelete