#3. Sarposa Prison | Kandahar, Afghanistan | April 25, 2011
This past April more than 480 inmates, including several Taliban fighters, escaped from Sarposa Prison in Afghanistan through a 1,050-foot tunnel that — according to a statement from the Taliban — took five months to dig.
The escape took place at about 1am, which left a lot of questions. Namely, how the hell did the inmates get out of their cells, and why didn’t prison guards notice construction of a massive hole that was more than three football fields long? The answer, of course, is that the guards helped.
A handful of senior prison officials and the governor have all been arrested in connection with the security breach, and more than 70 inmates have been recaptured. While it was a big embarrassment for Afghan and NATO officials, it wasn’t as big as they one they suffered in 2008 when nearly 900 prisoners escaped from the same facility.
Next: HM Maze Prison, Ireland
