At least 75 inmates, many of them members of a notorious Brazilian gang, have escaped from a Paraguayan prison.
The prison’s director and head of security were fired immediately after it was discovered the inmates were on the run on Sunday.
Officials said they discovered a tunnel and cells filled with as many as 200 bags of earth.
“It’s not possible that nobody saw anything in all this time,” Justice Minister Cecilia Perez told the Telefuturo station.
“This isn’t the work of one day or one night.”
Interior Minister Euclides Acevedo said in a statement that the tunnel itself may have been a ruse to cover complicity by prison officials and that many of the inmates may have been allowed to walk out of the prison’s main gate.
Mr Acevedo said the majority of the escapees belong to the First Capital Command based in Brazil, which borders the city of Pedro Juan Caballero, where the prison is located.
He said national police had been mobilised to hunt for the escapees.
The prison’s director and head of security were fired and Ms Perez said the fight against organised crime is not only against the Brazilian gang “but also clearly against all the corruption within our system, which sadly is totally contaminated”.
