Unbelievable Escapes That Defied All Odds: 8 Prison Breaks You Have to See to Believe

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Dillinger returned to criminal activity within weeks of being granted parole. After committing two bank robberies in June and August 1933 (this time making off with $10,000—almost a quarter of a million dollars today), he was arrested in Dayton, Ohio, and sent to a Lima, Ohio, jail to await trial. Guards discovered Dillinger had a document outlining an escape plan with him, but he refused to confirm what it was. 

He formulated a plan for some of his criminal acquaintances to escape their confinement. The ragtag group of criminals, later known as “the First Dillinger Gang,” impersonated Indiana State Police officers in an attempt to free Dillinger under the pretense of his being extradited to Indiana. When Sheriff Jess Sarber requested the “officers” show their credentials, one of the fake police officers shot and killed him while the group escaped to Indiana with Dillinger in tow. 

Dillinger and his gang then embarked on a series of robberies before decamping to Tucson, Arizona, to hide out. Authorities were later able to locate and arrest Dillinger and his accomplices; Dillinger was sent back to Indiana to face trial for the murder of a police officer during one of the gang’s robberies. Though he was locked inside what was then described as an “inescapable” prison, the famed criminal was able to break out again in March 1934 by carving a fake gun from wood and using it to threaten prison guards. He then fled to Chicago.

A nationwide manhunt ensued following the breakout. Dillinger laid low with his girlfriend, Billie Frechette, and assembled a new gang. They pulled off robberies in South Dakota and Iowa within weeks of his escape. Following a shootout with authorities and a near arrest at a rural Wisconsin vacation lodge, Dillinger reentered hiding in Chicago and underwent cosmetic surgery to (unsuccessfully) alter his appearance in an effort to conceal his identity. 

Romanian madam Anna Sage later gave Dillinger’s location to authorities to save herself from deportation. On July 22, 1934, after catching a movie at Chicago’s Biograph Theater, Dillinger was ambushed by federal agents before being shot and killed while trying to escape down a nearby alley. Despite his criminal reputation, thousands attended his funeral. 

Rédoine Faïd’s Grand Prison Escapes

Rédoine Faïd is a career criminal known for his spectacular escapes from French prisons in 2013 and again in 2018. He’s the second youngest of 12 children born to Algerian immigrants in northern France; Faïd’s life of crime began when he was just a teen after joining his brothers in their criminal enterprise. Following a slew of armed robberies throughout the mid-1990s, he was arrested and spent the next decade in prison. He also published a memoir, Robber – From the Projects to Organized Crime, that chronicled his time in organized crime, prison stint, and purported reform. 

Despite having claimed to have left his life of crime behind, Faïd found himself back in prison in 2011. He had violated his parole and authorities suspected he had been involved in a deadly armed robbery that resulted in the death of a police officer. 

Faïd made a daring escape in 2013 thanks to his multiple accomplices, who snuck weapons and explosives into the prison. The group took multiple prison guards hostage and used the explosives to break through a series of security doors, clearing the way for Faïd’s escape. Faïd made his way to the getaway car that was waiting for him, fled the prison, and went into hiding. 

His freedom was short-lived. French authorities arrested him just weeks later, and Faïd was given an additional decade in prison for the escape on top of his already sizable sentence for his connection to the 2010 robbery. 

But that didn’t stop Faïd from breaking free again in 2018—this time using a helicopter. On July 1, 2018, a group of Faïd’s accomplices hijacked a chopper before flying it to the prison, which was located in the outskirts of Paris. They landed in the courtyard and deployed smoke bombs to shield themselves from guards while they used angle grinders to break through to the visitation room, where Faïd and his brother were waiting. The brothers boarded the helicopter and escaped, and a months-spanning manhunt ensued. 

He was finally arrested alongside his brother in October 2018, this time receiving an additional 14-year prison sentence for his cinematic escape. 

The 1983 Maze Prison Escape 

Better known by those with Irish republican sympathies as the Great Escape, the Maze Prison escape was a 1983 maximum security prison break orchestrated by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group seeking to end British rule in Northern Ireland. The Maze Prison was said to be one of the most secure prisons in all of Europe; the big escape was one of many the IRA managed to pull off during the Troubles, a longstanding nationalist conflict between Irish and British forces spanning from the 1960s to late 1990s.