The Craziest Prison Escapes Ever

the craziest prison escapes of all time the Alcatraz Escape Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary better known as Alcatraz is likely the most iconic prison in the entire world Alcatraz sits on top of a small island in the San Francisco Bay and started its life in the 1850s as a military fort and then was converted to a military prison in the 1910s and in the 1930s the United States Department of Justice bought the military prison and turned it into what we know it as today a former maximum security federal prison Alcatraz was Notorious for a couple of reasons

both of those reasons being extremely tied together for starters it was Notorious because it was literally seen as an escape proof prison and that was because it combined the highest level technology possible within the walls of this prison and it also coupled that with Timeless prehistoric technology outside of the Prison Walls what I mean by that is the literal mile of rough shark-infested water surrounding the prison making it extremely unique and almost one of a kind because sure being inside a Maximum Security Prison with all of the bells and whistles is one thing but having

all of those in combination with being on a remote island surrounded by rough shark-infested water is just a whole another level and that is partially what made Alcatraz so famous but obviously they don't build these prisons for great people these Federal maximum security prisons exist for a reason which brings us to the second reason why this prison was so notorious it was home to some of the most infamous criminals of its time for example Al Capone George Machine Gun Kelly Alvin carpet and a bunch of others so yeah it's safe to assume that Alcatraz was

likely the one prison that nobody could escape from and from 1933 until 1962 that was considered true there was multiple Escape attempts but none that were considered successful that was until June 11th of 1962 when three men would cause not only National headlines but also an ongoing mystery that still puzzles the world to this very day Frank Morris and the angland brothers were lifelong criminals and by the time they had ended up at Alcatraz they were no strangers to escape attempts Frank Morris started his criminal career at the age of 13 and lived a life

of crime primarily consisting of drugs and robbery and throughout his time being in and out of the system he had escaped multiple times from multiple different Correctional Facilities he was likely able to escape due to his extremely high intelligence and is recorded to have an IQ of 133 which is in the top 2% of the general population but unfortunately he decided to use his powers for evil on the other hand the angland brother s John and Clarence didn't start their criminal career much later Clarence was caught breaking into a service station when he was only

14 years old and the brothers began robbing banks together not long after They too had multiple Escape attempts and successful escapes on their record which may not come as a surprise considering the context of this video now that we have all of the information one question Still Remains What happens when you mix an inescapable prison with criminals that cannot be contained well the answer lies in the following story a story that is shrouded in irony because sure why wouldn't you want to have all of the extremely dangerous bad guys in one place well because then

you have all of the bad guys in one place where they can work together and that is exactly what happened Frank Morris John angland Clarence angland and Allan West actually knew each other from previous convictions in Florida and Georgia I guess you really are the sum of the five people you hang out with regardless with all of their histories of prison escapes it didn't take long for them to begin plotting their escape from Alcatraz the pron that you're supposedly not able to escape and after coming together to join forces they come up with a plan

to escape and this plan starts by chipping away at cement oh and if you're curious why I didn't mention Alan West earlier you'll see why later just just trust me obviously being in a Maximum Security Prison leaves minimal opportunities for easy escapes but these criminals identified the weakest point of their cell being not the door but the vent that was hidden under everybody's sink and for a 6-month period all four of these men begin widening the Ducks beneath their sinks using saw blades metal spoons electric drill bits anything they could get their hands on that

would chip away at the cement now this alone brings up two questions how did they hide the hole and how did they cover the sound of chipping away at cement well two simple answers in regards to how they would hide chipping away at the hole first of all these mens would take turn being on guard watching for the guards that would typically only do their hourly Patrol but sometimes would do spontaneous pearls as well where they would need to obviously make sure that the guards did not see them digging these and once their daily digging

session was complete how they concealed them from the guards throughout the rest of the day when they weren't digging them was actually quite clever all of these men made papier-mâché replicas of the vent and surrounding wall area painted in the same color as the wall from paint that one of these men stole from their prison job how they covered the noise of digging was because one of the men actually played the accordion and during music hour was the perfect opportunity to quickly and loudly bang away at the cement now after roughly 6 months of digging

all of these men had access to what was behind their wall and obviously this hole just didn't go outside it led to a gap between the walls consisting primarily of pipes this unguarded utility area between cells was the perfect place to assess the situation and once these men had access to this Corridor they climbed the pipes and found the closest exit they could find which happened to be a vacant top level cell block where they set up a Secret Workshop the men weren't going to be escaping at this point in time but they were getting

extremely close to their Great Escape in this vacant cell block the men identified their Escape Route which was a ceiling vent that they would need to pry open but for them that was no big task and they spent the next few months bringing supplies up to their Secret Workshop specifically raincoats glues magazines pieces of plywood anything that would be helpful and useful for their escape over time the men were beginning to stitch together raincoats to build a makeshift raft and putting together pieces of plywood to make makeshift paddles and also reading magazines about water safety

and mechanics to help educate themselves on the best way to essentially act on the water and make something to potentially float across the water it was really quite ingenious and once they had their raft paddle and Escape vent cried open they were ready to make their escape around 1: p.m. on June 11th Frank Morris and the England Brothers got out of their bed put replica papier-mâché heads into their bed to make it appear that they were still in bed and met up together in their Secret Workshop where they grabbed the raft broke the ceiling vent

and began their escape these men climbed out of the vent on the ceiling onto the roof of alcatra and then descended 50 ft off of the prison roof onto the prison grounds hauling all of their gear while sliding down a kitchen vent pipe the men somehow avoided the sniper towers and outdoor guards and climbed the 12-ft barbed wire fences and planted their boat in water on the shore that was a blind spot to search lights and gun towers and at that point they had inflated their raft with an accordion and set sail and the three

of these men were never seen again now you might be asking yourself wait the three of these men what happened to the fourth man well Alan West wasn't as lucky as the other criminals and on the night of the Escape when West tried to remove the papier-mâché concrete concoction that was covering the hole in the wall he couldn't the concrete that he had used to temporarily hold the vent in place during the day had hardened and by the time he finally got the vent off and was able to make it to the Secret Workshop the

rest of the men were gone and West simply accepted his fate and went back to his cell where he went to bed that story alone is insane and it's still not over yet the three men had essentially made the perfect escape and nobody knew of their escape until the next morning when guards were doing their rounds and noticed that these three men were not waking up and when one of the guards tried to poke Frank Morris in the head with his Club Morris's head literally fell to the ground and it was at that moment when

the prison guards had discovered that they had three men on the loose the following day on June 12th almost instantly military and law enforcement agencies began investigations on the air Land and Sea surrounding the prison and while some bits and pieces of items used by the escapes were found spread across the general area there is no recorded evidence of what happened to the three men after they left the alcatra grounds during the investigation that took place on the 12th Allan West was caught with his papier-mâché replica head and at this point the guards knew what

the head was going to be used for and Allen was about to be in a lot of trouble and because of that Allan was willing to give up all of the information he had to ensure that he didn't get in too much trouble for having this paper mâche head and fortunately he did because Allan is the biggest reason why we have all of the information we have about this entire Escape without Allan essentially ratting on his friends a lot of this prison escape would have been left to speculation now if you want to get into

a bit of conspiracy since their escape there has been alleged sightings of these escaped men some in the United States some in Brazil and a letter has even surfaced supposedly being written from one of these escapes to a loved one claiming that all of the men made it out alive although none of these were ever confirmed and it's very likely that all of the men that escaped alcatra that day they either died during their escapee or are dead now due to natural causes or simply due to the consequences of living a life of crime so

yeah when you mix a prison that is impossible to escape with prisoners that are impossible to keep confined you get an ongoing mystery that lasts over 60 years but as crazy as this story may be we still have two more to cover the Catch Me If You Can escapes when you were a kid on the playground playing tag with your friends the gifer say Catch Me If You Can while running away well Frank abil said Catch Me If You Can every day to the FBI for years while on the run for stealing millions of dollars

and breaking a laundry list of other laws the story of Frank Abigail literally inspired the movie Catch Me If You Can and today I'm going to tell the real story of exactly how he escaped prison both times I did give a bit of a teaser on why he was put in jail but let me give a bit more context Frank Abigail started at an early age similar to the first story when he moved to New York at the age of 16 by himself he quickly realized that as a child you can't do much so he

decided to no longer be a child he altered his driver's license to say 26 not 16 not only does he need to be an adult but he needs money and living in New York is not cheap so what's the natural Next Step get a job right earn some money of course not you start defrauding banks with fraudulent checks and that's exactly where Frank Abigail Jr started his Infamous streak of conning and crime Frank wasn't your average run-of-the mail fraudster and he was rather clever and charming and one of the biggest reasons why he was able

to get away with his crimes for so long is because he was a Serial impostor specifically by impersonating professionals when cashing these checks so that there was less scrutiny and chance of being figured out he faked being a pilot a doctor a lawyer and other white collar professions to ensure that he was not on anybody's radar and obviously it worked after collecting millions of dollars from these fraudulent checks and living a luxurious lifestyle and traveling the world on money that wasn't his Frank was ultimately caught Frank was initially caught in France where he spent time

in both French prisons and Swedish prisons and after serving time in both countries and being banned from Sweden Frank was deported back to the United States of America and when Frank's plane landed in New York City while it was still on the tarmac Frank was able to escape the plane through the kitchen Galley and not only did he escape the plane through the galley but he also escaped from the airport on foot keep in mind airports are pretty secure places and I guess this was you know a different time if you know what I mean

but still that's a pretty crazy feat this is the tame prison escape of the two which is why I'm kind of covering it a bit quickly Frank ended up being on the run for a few weeks until he was caught once again this time at the Montreal Airport you think this guy would have learned his lesson around airports but I guess not it's also a bit ironic that he was caught in Quebec you know a french-speaking Canadian province regardless it's this second capture which Sparks the crazy story of his second escape from prison Frank was

sent to a Federal Detention Center in Atlanta Georgia where he was awaiting his trial and it was at this Detention Center where he pulled off the most lucky and and almost funny prison escapes the US Marshall that brought Frank Abigail into this Detention Center somehow managed to forget Abigail's paperwork and this gave Abigail a lot of room to come up with convenient stories and the story that he began to spin was that he was a prison insor a secret shopper of penitentiaries if you will and because of this although he was incarcerated he was given

very special treatment specifically by the guards one of the most interesting perks that Frank got was he actually wasn't even in a prison jumpsuit he was allowed to wear street clothes which may seem simple but is a huge privilege so even though Frank is locked up he's not necessarily in a bad situation guards are speculating that because there's no papers he must be a prison inspector Frank is definitely not going to tell them that's not the case he's being given special treatment in this jail which is almost unheard of and he then gets the idea

that hm maybe I can get out of this place and that's exactly where his Escape begins after he decided that he was going to escape he calls his girlfriend as he knew that he would need somebody on the outside to help validate the story he was about to tell when he called his girlfriend he ensured that she had an FBI business card from an agent that previously visited her due to some other things that Frank was up to and then he asked her to impersonate a magazine writer which she did and she used this fake

writer Persona to set up a meeting with the real Police Inspector who she would also get the business card of which was the entire point of the meeting once Frank's girlfriend had the FBI's card and the prison inspector's card they were well on their way to Breaking Frank out she went to a local paper copy place and made 500 copies of the FBI agent's business card but she changed the contact number on the business card to a pay phone in a mall during her next visit she gave Frank both of these business cards and with

these business cards in hand Frank was able to convince prison guards that he in fact was a prison inspector Frank convinced one of these guards that he had an urgent meeting with the FBI and that he needed to be released immediately and he even urged the guard to call the FBI agent's number on the business card that he had which he did and when this prison guard called the FBI agent it was really Abigail who was waiting at the mall and Abigail played that part perfectly claiming that Frank had extremely sensitive information that he needed

to give to her immediately and that this information was too high level for this prison guard to be made aware of and for that reason the FBI agent was going to come pick up Frank at once because his prison inspection had come to a close and later that day prison guards walked Frank directly out of the prison allowing him to walk directly into his girlfriend's car and Frank drove off into the sunset once again as a free man although this perfect Escape didn't have a perfect ending at least not in the way that he thought

because he was caught only a month later in New York Frank was sentenced to 12 years in prison where he actually ended up only serving five as he made a deal with the FBI that he would be released early if he would help the FBI on fraud cases and teach them all of the tricks that he used to commit all of the crimes that he did a good deal both ways around now the story actually ended up having a bit of a happy ending because Frank really did turn his life around he was able to

be a very valuable asset to the FBI he actually met his wife while doing FBI work and had three sons and one of his sons is actually now an FBI agent and while the Escape story was utter Insanity one of the most interesting facts about this entire case is the fact that after all of the crimes were committed all of the time on the run and all of the jail time was served Frank was only 26 years old which means that everything I just described happened when he was 16 to 26 this man literally lived

a lifetime worth of life in a decade and it's no wonder that he had such a successful book and eventual movie adaptation there's obviously a lot more to Frank's life story but that's beyond the scope of this video and speaking on beyond the scope of this video let me just say this when doing research for this video I found so many insane stories about people escaping prison in literally insane ways and for this video I wanted to pick some pretty famous examples that were verifiably crazy and also somewhat wellknown however I do have a list

of over 30 other examples of people who escaped prison around the world in the most insane ways so if you guys loved this video and would like a part two about more obscure and more unknown prison escapes please let me know in the comments that you would love a part two to this video and I would be more than happy to make it maybe if this video hits 20,000 likes I'll make a followup your guys support truly means a lot now let's get to our third crazy Prison Break Story the Japanese Prison Break Yos shiratori

is likely one of the most famous Escape artists from all of Japan and he didn't have a career in Magic he unfortunately had a life of crime Yosh lost his father at the age of two and his own mother abandoned him shortly after and as an adolescent he worked at a tofu shop and then later became a fisherman catching crabs in Russia however after succumbing to a crippling gambling addiction he turned to a life of crime throughout his crime career Yoshi famously escaped from four different prisons and I'm about to tell you about every single

one of them Yoshi was initially put behind bars in 1936 for a felony murder charge a murder charge that is speculated to have been a false forced confession from abusive prison guards regardless Yoshi was in prison and during this time in the early 1900s Japanese prison was extremely harsh and it was for that reason that people were almost left no other option than try to escape because the living conditions were simply so horrible and Yoshi was no different not long after being locked up Yoshi began studying the routines of the guards to have an understanding

of their patterns so he could potentially plan and escape and one day while cleaning himself in the bath house he found the perfect tool to escape he took one of the metal bands off of a wash bucket in the bath house and brought it back to his cell where he was able to Fashion this thin flimsy piece of metal into a makeshift lockpick and he used this lockpick to escape he first waited for the guards to pass by his cell and then he put pieces of wood underneath a blanket on his bed to make it

appear that he was in his cell and then he began picking the lock directly on the front door of his cell one of the most Brazen escapes we've talked about so far in this video after successfully picking the lock on his own cell he was free from his cell but still behind many other locked doors and surprisingly he was able to success lockpick through numerous other doors and successfully escape the prison and Achieve Freedom once again but this is only his first Escape of many as 3 days after his initial Escape he was already back

in police custody because he was found stealing supplies from a local hospital because of this escape and attempted theft he was given another life sentence and transferred to a different prison originally yosa was actually placed back in the original prison he escaped from but during World War II in 1942 Yoshi was actually transferred to another prison known as akata prison where he found himself in harsher conditions and the guards at this prison were very privy to his Escape attempts and they wanted to make sure that they made an example out of Yoshi one of the

additional punishments that Yoshi received at this new prison was extended solitary confinement and these solitary confinement rooms were literally designed for escape artists they had smooth copper walls the ceiling was extremely high and the only way in and out was the front door besides a skylight that was at the very top of the very high ceiling which obviously nobody could reach right well almost anybody couldn't reach because on June 15th in solitary confinement Yos decided to escape once again when I say Yoshi was a master escape artist I mean it and he was able to

escape this unescapable room and how he did it was he first got out of his handcuffs oh yeah he was literally kept in handcuffs 24/7 in this new prison just because they wanted to make extra sure he would not Escape but obviously that didn't stop him he escaped these handcuffs by finding a piece of wire once again in the solitary confinement where it came from we don't know but regardless he used it to unpick his handcuffs at this point his hands were free and he began to use his bare palms and feet to scale the

sides of this extremely tall prison cell Not only was Yosh a Master Lockpick but he was also a very talented climber and this came in handy here and after a few attempts he was able to make it to this Skylight which was sealed by metal bars and impossible to escape through besides the fact that it had a wooden frame securing those metal bars and that wooden frame was rotting due to its exposure to the elements now Yos wasn't able to just break this wood frame in one go but similar to the first story where the

men broke through the concrete over time Yosh over time was able to pick away at the wooden window frame until he was able to escape through the roof of this unescapable room once Yosh was certain that the wooden frame was brittle enough he waited until a particularly stormy night to bust through the roof as he assumed on a stormy night the guards would be less likely to suspect tapping on the ceiling to be footsteps and more likely to Simply write them off as rain which is exactly what he did and it worked flawlessly and once

again Yosh was a free man now this time you must be asking yourself okay obviously he didn't steal again right he escaped prison twice almost an impossible feat there's no way he was going to steal again to go back to prison right and you're technically right but obviously he did go back to jail because we still have two more escapes to talk about and the reason he was sent back to prison is rather unique after his 3 months of essentially homeless Freedom he decided to pay one of the headu guards from aita prison a visit

because this head guard was one of the only ones who never beaten and abused him the guard recognized Yoshi at his door and leted him in and fed Yoshi and allowed him to tell his story and Yoshi explained to the Head guard that he was here simply to tell him his plan because he deserved know because he was the only one who treated Yoshi well Yoshi explained how he wanted to go to America to raise awareness about the human rights violations that were taking place in Japanese prison and hopefully through this awareness in a civil

lawsuit be able to gain his freedom once again and while this head guard seemed to be respectful in listening when Yos went to use the washroom this headu guard unsurprisingly called the police and Yos was sent back to prison once again now this time Yoshi requested that he at least go to a Tokyo prison where it's a bit warmer because the first two prisons he had spent time in were in the northern part of Japan where it was relatively cold which only added to the distress that he experienced within prison however this third prison he

was sent to was not in Tokyo and not in a warm climate at all it was actually the northernmost prison in all of Japan known as abashiri prison and the guards at this prison were not messing around at this point they knew this man was extremely clever and not only escaped from one prison but from two using different methods and when they booked him into this third prison they made sure that he would never escape again he was in a cell that only had openings that were smaller than the human body so he could not

possibly Escape he was given custom fit ankle cuffs and arm cuffs that were behind his back without keyholes so they could not possibly be picked and he was almost always by himself in freezing cold condition and on top of this his life sentence was only extended due to his additional Escape so realistically at this point yosa had nothing to live for his arms and legs were bound there was absolutely no opportunity for his escape and he was alone all of the time freezing cold and poorly treated but somehow yosa still had one more trick up

his sleeve while confined in this hell Hall Yoshi's body was basically useless but his mind was definitely not and what he did to escape abashiri prison was absolutely insane he realized that the cell that he was being held in was made primarily of iron and the food that he was given every single day was a very salty miso soup and while he needed to eat as much of his food as possible to live he always left a little bit of suit behind which he would Splash directly on the bolts of the observation window on the

door and on the hinges of his handcuffs and Ankle cuffs and slowly over time the salt and oxygen exposure on this metal would slowly cause it to rust and weaken and after 6 months of slowly deteriorating the metal that confined him he was able to make a move once again at night he started by fully removing his leg cuffs and then his arm cuffs and then began the true challenge he began unbolting the observation window on the front door of his cell but there was still problem even with the observation window bars removed the hole

was still too small for the human body well at least the average human body Yosh was of course a talented contortionist maybe because he was Ultra flexible or maybe just because he was Ultra determined he was able to dislocate his shoulders to shove his torso through this observation window and flop himself on the ground outside of his cell almost free he later broke through an unprotected window in the ceiling in a different part of the jail and was once again a free man and also the first person ever to escape from abashiri prison one of

the most brutal Japanese prisons ever but similar to alcatra the risks associated with escaping this prison weren't just within the walls even if you escaped this prison you are still in an extremely remote northern part of Japan with no civilization around you extremely cold temperatures and on top of all of this mountain bears but somehow Yosi still survived he ended up finding an abandoned Min shaft in one of the nearby mountains and was able to live in there alone primarily eating nuts berries small animals in the area and even crab fishing which he reported to

have learned from watching the Bears do it which is insane if true but here's the thing Yos didn't die in this m shaft he obviously got a bit restless and decided that it was worth risking going back into civilization and made the long trk to the nearest city where he was surprised to see English and American soldiers and what seemed to be a huge change in the culture and that's when he grabbed a newspaper and got caught up to date during his 2 years spent in this abandoned Min shaft world War I had come to

a close Japan had surrendered and America for the most part had taken over the entire Penitentiary system which to Yoshi was a huge relief because he assumed at that point that there would be huge reform and at the very least they'd be bless on his case and with this newfound information he felt more confident to try to return to his family but it was on this 50-day journey from where he was to his family that he found himself in trouble once again starving on his journey he decided to pick some tomatoes from a tomato field

that he was passing and the farmer who owns this field just so happened to see Yoshi take these tomatoes and this farmer mistook Yoshi for a local thief the two ended up fighting and the farmer ended up dying as a result of the fight some claims state that Yoshi killed this man accidentally and others claim that it was legitimate self-defense regardless the farmer was killed and Yoshi once again was caught but initially they didn't even know who they had they only thought they had a murderer but once he was fully booked they realized that they

had the infamous Escapist Yoshi shiori and he was no longer sentenced to life in prison he was sentenced to death the year is now 1947 and Yoshi is being sent to sapuro prison where he will await his execution and obviously because Yoshi has now escaped three different prisons using three different methods and now has theft and murder under his belt the police are taking absolutely no Chances with this final cell Yosh is being given 24/7 surveillance reinforced dors and bars and any opening that leads to this room is smaller than the human head because no

matter how good of a contortionist you are you can't make your skull smaller so in this situation there is absolutely no way that yosha escapes right this is obviously where the story ends he was obviously later executed by the Japanese government and that's history right of course not this is Yosh we're talking about and interestingly this is one of the most simple escapes he performed because since day one in this jail cell Yosh started playing mind games specifically by always looking up Yosh up until this point had always escaped through the roof and his guards

knew that and every day when the guards would check on him yos would make sure that he was looking up and as a result the guards were always looking up making sure that when they would check on Yoshi they would always check the ceiling but this Escape had nothing to do with the ceiling and Yoshi was going in the opposite direction Yoshi's cell was fortified on the walls ceiling openings the one place that wasn't fortified was the floor and over the course of a month yosa would remove a floorboard and begin digging into the floor

below his bed in secrecy until he had a usable tunnel and once again one morning the guards were unable to get a response out of Yoshi and when they entered his cell they realized that what was in his bed wasn't Yoshi but once again a pile of wood almost a calling card at this point and for a year Yos was on the run and as you may or may not know he did go back to jail one last time but this time was different he ended up confessing to a random police officer who decided to

offer him a cigarette in public and at this point Yoshi could not handle the guilt and he confessed everything to this police officer who was simply offering a gesture of kindness but when Yosh was tried again things were different the system treated him with sympathy reform seemed to have taken place murder charge he had was dropped and considered self-defense and as a result so was his execution his request to go to a Tokyo prison was accepted and his new sentence was only 20 years 20 years which he happily served as his prison conditions were much

better and after 14 out of those 20 years Yoshi was paroled on good behavior and was for the first time in a long time a truly free man this story is insane and I knew I had to save it for last and while some claim parts are exaggerated personally I don't even care I think it's a great story and for that reason Yos is a bit of a legend in Japan and there are even statues up of him which is kind of interesting but I suppose the story is something you can learn from Yoshi passed

away in 1979 at the age of 71 but he still lives on today in folklore stories like this films books and other stuff like that I want to thank you guys so much for watching this video this video was so fun to make and honestly these were three insane stories but like I said if you want more prison escape stories I have a ton more some of which are obscure and some of which are just downright strange so if you want those videos leave a like or leave a comment below telling me you want them

and if you're still hungry for more trusty broke content right now check out this video on screen it's a video about every possible way you could Escape North Korea and that video is also full of crazy stories just like this thank you guys so much for watching this video and as always trust me bro [Music]