Gone are the days of scaling prison walls or digging holes out of Alcatraz.
If a prisoner wants to escape their cell, the best method appears to be climbing into a plastic bag.
At least that how one creative inmate found freedom in France last week – before he was quickly tracked down and locked up again.
Elyazid A, 20, known as ‘the Joker’ or ‘the Equaliser’, hid in a large laundry bag filled with clothes.
He was then wheeled out of Lyon-Corbas prison on a trolley by one of his jail buddies, as he was released last Friday.
A video circulating on social media even appears to show the blue and white stripped bag in question – it must have been a tight squeeze!
It took 24 hours for officers to realise ‘the Joker’ had played a trick on them.
They eventually tracked Elyazid A down and arrested him on Monday morning as he left a cellar on the outskirts of Lyon.
He had been serving at least two prison sentences and was under investigation for alleged criminal association and conspiracy to murder.
His cellmate is still being sought by police.
The most audacious prison escapes in history
Escape from Alcatraz
Three inmates in the notorious island prison of Alcatraz, off the coast of San Francisco, went missing in June 1972.
They had spent two years digging an escape route through cell walls and constructing a raft to sail to freedom.
Dummies were even placed in the prisoners’ beds – meaning guards didn’t notice their absence until the next morning.
Investigators later concluded the three men had drowned as they sailed to freedom.
The Great Escape.
Seventy-six prisoners escaped a Nazi war camp in March 1944 by digging tunnels underneath it.
More than 600 captees were involved in constructing the 30 foot deep and 2 foot wide tunnels.
Of the 76 who got out, 73 were recaptured. Hitler ordered half of them executed as an example.
Maze Prison escape
One of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe fell victim to biggest prison escape since the Second World War.
After months of planning and smuggling in hand guns, prisoners belonging to the IRA simultaneously held prison officers hostage in September 1983 in Maze Prison in Northern Ireland.
Inmates highjacked a lorry and most escaped over a fence. Thirty-eight got out in total.
The director of France’s prison administration Sebastien Cauwel said the escape was ‘extremely rare’ and pointed to overcrowding in the prison.
He told BFMTV: ‘This is an extremely rare event that we have never experienced in this administration and which clearly reveals a whole series of serious dysfunctions.
‘This facility has an occupancy rate of 170%. This clearly makes working conditions more difficult for our staff.
‘What this incident reveals is rather an accumulation of material errors, possibly faults, which the investigation will bring to light.’
Investigations into the escape has been ordered by the justice minister Gérald Darmanin, with Lyon public prosecutors, the French prison service and Lyon-Corbas jail itself doing the same.
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