32-year old Oleg Topalov was in a maximum security jail scheduled to stand trial for two counts of murder until he escaped Tuesday—using only a spoon, according to the Daily Mail.
According to investigators, Topalov used a tablespoon to dig out a hole in the ceiling of his cell and then crawled his way through a ventilation vent.
Topalov is the fourth man to break out of the maximum security jail in 20 years. He is also the first to break out of a jail in the capital of Russia in 12 years.
Guards realized Topalov was gone at around 5 am Tuesday morning.
In an interview with Interfax an investigator said, “It was established that Oleg Topalov used a spoon to scrape away the cement and brickwork from the wall of the ventilation shaft in his cell.”
Matrosskaya Tishina is known as one of the least secure prisons in Russia. It needs multiple repairs which, according to authorities, made it easy for Topalov to dig his way out and escape.
“Because of the building being run-down, Topalov had no difficulty in widening the vent of the air-shaft, through which he got to the prison’s roof,” Kristina Belousova, a representative from the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
After leaping from the roof of the jail onto a nearby block, he used the classic rope-made-from-bed-sheets routine to lower himself to the ground.
Moscow law enforcement is actively looking for the escapee while offering a “large reward” for any information leading to his capture.
Before his escape Topalov was being held on illegal possession of firearms in addition to the two counts of murder. He had been in prison for a year and a half prior to his escape.
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