A Greek prison in Trikala, northwestern Thessaly, has been locked down after the discovery of a tunnel that could be used in an escape plot. The tunnel was found by prison guards who searched the cell of an inmate. A full investigation is now underway.

The prison is the same one from which Panagiotis Vlastos made a failed escape attempt when a helicopter tried to land in the prison’s yard. It was also the same prison from where eleven prisoners did succeed in escaping a short while later.

The creation of a tunnel to escape from prison is not new. One of the inmates at Trikala was also a maximum security prisoner from Albania who had been transfered after serving time at the prisons of Corfu where 21 inmates had attempted to construct a makeshift tunnel as part of an escape plan.

Sources state that the prisoner from Corfu was the mastermind of the escape plan via tunnel at Trikala. The prisoner is serving a life sentence for homicide, robbery, illegal ownership of arms, and use of these.

In Corfu, he had been part of the ten prisoners involved in the digging of a tunnel that was 15 meters long leading to the outer walls of the prison from one of the cells. Inmate’s at Trikala hatched a plan inspired by a prison escape of 44 inmates in March 1996 from the same prison. They had managed to dig a tunnel that linked to another 150-meter tunnel that had been constructed by Brits when they occupied the Ionian islands.

Their plan, however was foiled when a dog owner became aware of activity under the ground.