A notorious Mafia boss is on the run after he escaped from a maximum security prison by climbing down a rope of knotted bed sheets from his cell window.
Footage from the CCTV shows Marco Raduano, 40, escaping from the Badu’e Carros jail in Sardinia, Italy on Friday in what could have been the scene of a film.
The boss of the Sacra Corona Unita mafia was seen shimmying down the rope and dangling down the outer wall of the prison before jumping from a height, falling onto the grass below and then quickly sprinting away.
No one noticed he was gone for nearly two hours until he failed to return to his cell from the leisure time period, which he regularly spent in the prison library.
He was four and a half years into an 18-year sentence for drug trafficking while still facing a murder trial. His mob is known for its violence and they often shatter their victims’ skulls with shotgun blasts to stop their relatives from giving them open-casket funerals.
Mr Raduano was said to be a model prisoner in jail and given the privilege of a job in the library on an upper floor.
Investigators suspect that the hours spent in the library gave him the chance to look out of the window and study the schedules of guards patrolling the wall.
Thus allowing him to time his escape perfectly for when there would be no guards present.
Mr Raduano reportedly took advantage of a shift change to take a set of keys and unlock the door that led to an outside wall. He then tied the bed sheets to a window to descend to the lawn below, a prison guard union representative told the Ansa news agency.
He then ducked under a metal fence on the outer periphery of the prison.
“This daring escape from one of Italy’s most secure jails was due to staff shortages,” said Giovanni Villa, head of the Sardinian branch of the FNS-CISL union.
He continued: "The prisoner from Puglia escaped in a daring way from one of the safest penitentiaries in Italy. It seems he had everything ready and that the escape was well planned for some time.
“We have been denouncing [the] lack of personnel for months and this is the main factor that compromised security.”
An officer said around 50 staff handle the security for 180 prisoners and that currently there is no one overseeing the prison surveillance, according to Il Messaggero.
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