Federal and state officials in northern Mexico have embarked on a full-fledged manhunt and alerted the United States border patrol in a bid to increase security after 129 inmates escaped from a state prison on Monday.
The prison break occurred in Piedas Negras, Mexico, across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. The 100+ prisoners escaped from a minimum-security facility but escaping through a tunnel in an old carpentry workshop, cutting through a chain-link fence surrounding the complex and making a break for it by running through an adjacent vacant lot, according to reports.
Authorities have taken into custody the prison director and two other prison officials who were on-duty when the inmates escaped and are under scrutiny as to whether they were involved in helping the jailbreak. All three will be detained for 30 days as the situation is investigated, according to Gen. Homero Ramos, Coahuila State Attorney General.
Local and federal authorities are searching for the inmates and Mexican police have set up blockades near the border of the United States. Additionally, the U.S. border patrol has deployed speed boats to aid in the search. U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officials have said they are aware of the escape and are in touch with Mexican authorities.
"CBP is aware of the reported jailbreak in northern Mexico, and out of an abundance of caution, has placed its officers and agents in the Eagle Pass, Texas area on alert," CBP spokesperson Dennis Smith said. "At this point, CBP has no reports of escapees attempting to cross the border."
Mexican authorities are currently offering an award of approximately $16,000 for information leading to the capture of each escaped inmate, CNN reports.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon responded heatedly to the news of the escape, posting numerous comments on Twitter, in one calling the jailbreak "deplorable."
"In the past six years more than 1,000 inmates have escaped from state prisons," Calderon tweeted. "From the federal prisons, not one."