If there was some sort of strange awards ceremony for prison escapes, this Brazilian gang leader would have won the award for craziest plan ever.
In an attempt to free himself from Gericinó prison in Rio de Janeiro, Clauvino de Silva dressed up as his daughter when she came to visit him and tried to walk out the door in her place.
According to prison officials, the “nervousness” of de Silva gave it away and he was caught before he had a chance to escape.
Apparently, de Silva’s plan was to dress up in this creepy mask, wig and outfit, and leave (!!) his 19-year-old daughter in jail as he left in her place. This has led police to look into her role as de Silva’s accomplice in the failed escape.
De Silva, who was part of one of Brazil’s most powerful criminal groups, has since been transferred to a unit of a maximum-security prison and will face disciplinary sanctions.
His failed attempt might seem pretty ridiculous, but it’s not the first time a criminal has gone to crazy lengths to break out of prison.
In 2007, Pascal Payet escaped a maximum security prison in the South of France when his buddies landed a HELICOPTER on the roof and cut through metal doors to free him.
In 2006, Richard Lee McNair escaped from a Louisiana penitentiary by hiding himself in an ‘escape pod’ buried under a pile of mailbags. The pallet of mailbags were shrink-wrapped and forklifted to a warehouse outside the prison where McNair cut himself out and escaped.
And how could we possibly forget El Chapo’s 2015 escape from a maximum-security prison in Mexico through a tunnel 1.5km in length!?
While these escapes sound like something out of a movie, all of the above have one thing in common: they were caught. Perhaps escaping prison isn’t as glamorous as the movies make it out to be.
You can hear more real-life prison breaks on the Escape podcast.