SEARCH FOR ESCAPED INMATES EXPANDED TO NATION, MEXICO

McALLEN, Texas -- Investigators on Thursday were trying to figure out how a
former police officer facing drug charges and five other federal inmates
escaped from a private jail, while the search for the fugitives was
expanded far outside South Texas. "We're looking all over Texas and other
states and into Mexico," U.S. Marshals Service Deputy Joe Magallan said.

No more prisoners were being sent to the East Hidalgo Detention Center
pending a probe into how the inmates overpowered a guard, slipped through a
power-controlled door and cut through a series of fences late Tuesday. The
fences included an alarm-equipped electrical fence that apparently wasn't
functioning and may have been turned off, Magallan said.

"Everything's being looked at," he said.

Magallan said tips and reports of sightings were streaming in, but so far
nothing had proved substantive. Investigators were questioning relatives of
the escapees and trolling fugitives' known hangouts for information. He
said officials were following several leads.

The jail remained in lockdown Thursday and there had been "top-to-bottom
shakedown" of inmates and staff, said Patrick LeBlanc, co-owner of LCS
Corrections Services Inc., of Lafayette, La. LCS is a private company that
runs the facility. He said the fence company was examining the fence system
and that LCS was doing a security audit as well as adding more external
lighting, security cameras and armed guards around the perimeter.

"We deeply apologize to the community," he said. "Before this issue we were
under the assumption we had good security. Sometimes it takes an event to
show us that we didn't."

LeBlanc offered a $25,000 reward was for information leading to the capture
of 41-year-old Francisco Meza-Rojas, the former McAllen police officer.

Meza-Rojas' trial on federal drug trafficking charges was scheduled to
begin Oct. 3. The other escapees were illegal immigrants from Mexico
alleged to be members of Raza Unida, a violent drug gang.

Authorities said the inmates gained access to exit doors after overpowering
the guard with a homemade knife and locking him in a room, then used "some
sort of wire cutter" to breach the fence lines. No alarm was sounded. The
guard was not injured.

The fugitives were thought to have split up, Magallan said. Hidalgo County
Sheriff Lupe Trevino said in a press release Wednesday that the men were
likely picked up in a vehicle on state Highway 107, which runs in front of
the facility.