‘Wizard of escapes’ breaks out of prison for fourth time using saw and bedsheets
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Authorities in Italy are racing to track down a man after he broke out of the maximum security wing of Milan’s Opera prison during the weekend in what has become his fourth successful escape from custody. Police rolled out patrols, checkpoints and tighter border controls within hours, worried that the 41-year-old Albanian inmate Taulant Toma may well attempt to leave the country before anyone catches a sight of him.
Toma, dubbed ‘the wizard of escapes’ by Italian press, managed his latest breakout on Saturday, using a tried and tested escape method that still feels ever-so-slightly more Hollywood than real life. He reportedly sawed through the iron bars of his cell using a file stolen from the prison workshop and then climbed down an outer wall using a cobbled-together rope system that involved knotted bedsheets, Euronews reports. He then scaled a six metre wall and vanished away into the darkness.
The man’s sentence for robbery and other crimes runs all the way up until October 2048, which may very well explain his determination to keep slipping through the ‘high-security’ cracks. Prosecutors noted that staff at Opera were in the middle of a shift change when Toma made his move; a detail that investigators consider crucial to understanding how the escape was allowed to have happened and gone unnoticed.
It’s not the first time that Toma has tested the limits of European prison design. He first broke out of Terni prison back in 2009. But his most talked about escape came in February 2013 when he fled from the maximum security wing in Parma alongside fellow inmate Vamentin Frokaj. Frokaj was later killed by a jeweller during a home invasion in 2015, a grim twist that became part of the escape’s legacy in Italian criminal lore.
After the 2013 Parma breakout, police spent a full 40 days searching for Toma. Only to learn he’d already been arrested over in Belgium and held in Liège awaiting extradition. Even that didn’t last long. He managed to escape from Belgian custody a few months later, adding yet another chapter to a file that now spans two countries.
Back in Milan, investigators are now reviewing CCTV from Opera prison to see if Toma had some kind of help on the outside. The episode has renewed criticism of Italy’s overstretched penal system which unions say has made even maximum security wings harder to secure. Opera held 1,338 inmates in spaces built for 918 at the time of the escape. While only 533 officers were on duty despite a need for at least 811 in order for the prison to run properly.
Gennarino De Fazio, secretary general of the penitentiary police union UILPA, said that the latest incident once again exposes deep structural failures, stating: ‘This umpteenth episode, combined with the drama that is experienced every day in prisons, further certifies the failure of the prison policies conducted by governments for at least the last 25 years’. He added that the situation ‘violates the fundamental human rights of inmates’ and puts ‘prison police corps operators to a very hard test’. (Pictures: AFP/Getty Images)
If a bedsheet-based jailbreak sounds unusual, you may well be surprised to learn that they happen a little more than you might expect. While not super common, with degrading prison facilities across the world, it’s not even the only such prison escape in the past week. Authorities in Louisiana were forced to mount a manhunt after a trio of men facing various charges broke out of the St. Landry Parish jail in Opelousas on December 2. The three inmates escaped by removing loose concrete blocks from a crumbling wall then climbing out using knotted sheets. One later died during the search, one was recaptured and the third remains on the run. (Picture: St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office)
