This is the extraordinary moment police in Brazil prised open a concrete floor tile in a bedroom to find an escaped convict, who had been on the run for over three years, hiding in an underground bunker. Cops captured Jean Gomes Chiola in the early hours of Tuesday morning following an anonymous tip-off that the fugitive was holed up in the property in Macaíba, north east Brazil.
The bunker was around 10 miles from Alcaçuz State Penitentiary where he had been serving time for drug trafficking offences.
The 39-year-old was arrested with his son, Jean Felipe, 20, in a joint raid between military and civil police who stormed the residence armed with a search warrant.
Along with the astonishing discovery, agents seized a .38 calibre revolver and several wraps of drugs.
‘When we knocked on the door it took a long time for the son to open up,’ detective Normando Feitosa explained to G1. ‘We thought this delay was strange, so we decided to break in and do a thorough search of the property. ‘That’s when we noticed something was wrong with the floor underneath a bunk bed.’
Officers used a crowbar to force open the heavy slab and were amazed to find the missing man hidden beneath.
When the Chiola stood up from his crouched position, the hole was waist deep.
Officers handcuff the man as they ask if there is a gun at the bottom of the hideout.
He is dripping with sweat and squints in the light after coming out of his darkened cubby hole.
Detective Feitosa admitted to FocusOn News, that they never expected to find the fugitive so easily.
‘It was a bit of a surprise to find him cowering in the hole. ‘If we hadn’t done a meticulous search and noticed the unevenness on the floor he would have escaped again,’ he said, adding the clue to his whereabouts came from an undisclosed source.
Chiola, better known as ‘Nêga An’, escaped from Alcaçuz in April 2015, according to investigators.
He broke out during the night with 35 other convicts, crawling down a tunnel measuring 55 centimetres in diameter.
Three lags were immediately recaptured
