Mafia mobster knots bed sheets together to escape from maximum-security prison
A MOBSTER has escaped from a maximum security prison on the island of Sardinia by sliding down a rope that he fashioned from knotted bed sheets.
Surveillance video footage shows Marco Raduano, 39, a boss of the Sacra Corona mafia, shimmying down the five white knotted bedsheets then scaling the outer wall of the Badu’ e Carros maximum-security prison, near Nuoro.
In the video, which has since gone viral, he is seen jumping several metres and falling on a lawn before hopping up and sprinting away.
His absence was discovered two hours later when he did not return to his cell after his leisure period, which he usually spent in the prison’s library. He had been arrested during a 2018 crackdown on drugs and arms trafficking and was recently handed a 19-year jail sentence.
Prison guard union representatives told the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata news agency (ANSA) that Raduano had taken advantage of a warden shift change to steal a set of keys and unlock a door that led to an outside wall, where he tied the bed linen to a window and descended to a lawn.
He then ducked under a metal fence on the outer periphery of the facility, which houses more than 30 of Italy’s most dangerous mobsters from the Cosa Nostra, Sacra Corona, Camorra and ’Ndrangheta mafia clans.
It is thought to be the first successful break-out from the jail.
Due to staffing shortages, a single guard watches the room where the keys are kept, the union officials added, and no one monitors the prison’s surveillance camera footage. “The prisoner escaped … from one of the safest penitentiaries in Italy. The escape was well planned,” said Giovanni Villa, of the Sardinia national security union.
“We have denounced lack of personnel for months and this is the main factor that compromised security.”
A manhunt is under way on Sardinia and in Raduano’s hometown of Vieste, in the south west of the mainland, where he was linked to multiple murders and had himself narrowly escaped a number of attempts on his life.
The search on Sardinia – with roadblocks, extra checks at ferry crossings and airports – has caused travel delays on the tourist island.
Police patrols have also been stepped up in Vieste on the mainland, where fireworks were set off when news of the escape broke. The mayor later attributed them to a particularly enthusiastic birthday party.