France Prison Break: Inmate Hides In Cellmate's Laundry Bag, Escapes Jail

A prisoner hid himself in the laundry bag of his cellmate, who was being freed after serving his time in Corbas prison near the French city of Lyon, and escaped the jail premises. The escaped inmate was serving his sentence for multiple crimes, including suspected links to organised crime, according to a report by CNN.

France prison administration director Sebastien Cauwel told BFMTV that the staff noticed on Saturday that the 20-year-old inmate was missing and admitted there had been negligence on their part. He said the man "took advantage" of his fellow inmate's release to escape from prison.

Highlighting the prison's overcrowding, he said that it sometimes gets difficult for the staff to manage the inmates. The prison is designed to hold 678 inmates but currently houses around 1,200, 170 percent more than it was supposed to hold, he said.

Mr Cauwel said, "This is an extremely rare event that we have never seen in this administration and which clearly shows a whole series of serious failures." He added that the prison launched an immediate internal investigation.

Last year, a group of armed men attacked a prison convoy in Normandy, France, to help a prisoner escape. The incident led to the killing of two prison guards and left three others injured.

According to France's Justice Minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, the incident took place while the inmate was being taken from court to a nearby prison. 

CNN obtained a video from the scene in which a black SUV was seen in flames that looked like it had crashed into the prison van near a toll booth on the highway. Later, the escaped prisoner, who was nicknamed The Fly, was caught again in Romania in February 2025, Reuters reported.