MEXICO.- Coahuila's state authorities announced today the detention of three women of the 131 criminals that escaped from the Piedras Negras prison on Monday.

A spokesperson of the Attorney General's State Office (PGJC in Spanish) confirmed the arrest "in the last hours" of the three women without giving away any detail of how it happen.

The PGJC also said that the number of fugitives is 131 and not 132, as initially reported; he did not specify the women to men ratio, either. With the capture, 128 convicts are still on the loose after escaping through a tunnel.

On his part, attorney Homero Ramos Gloria stated to Televisa that an investigation regarding the possible involvement of the prison's direction and its guards has been opened.

"Three people are under arrest (in preventive prison)," the Director of the Prison, the Shift Supervisor and the Guard Captain, said the attorney.

"In the first hours of the day, after the arrival of armed forces from Saltillo to Piedras Negras, (…) we took the guards declarations," he added.

About the fugitives, he explained that 86 of them are charged with federal offenses like organized crime and that to capture them back the state of Coahuila has asked for help from US authorities.

After the escape, "the emergency system activated," the state was on alert and launched an operation to search for the criminals, said the PGJC officer.

The penal is ruled by the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP in Spanish) whose coordinator has traveled to Piedras Negras with the Chief of prisons to tend to the penal investigation regarding the jailbreak.

They are focusing in how an "artisanal and unstable" tunnel of over 30 meters long and more than three meter deep to evade the perimeter wall could have been built from the carpenter's workshop, said the attorney.

"The way it was built involves a difficulty to go through it. So it leads us to believe that a series of indications alleging the participation of some of the people in charge of the prisoners exist," he added.

"The need for a comprehensive investigation including the entire guard shift for yesterday and the two previous days is clear," declared Ramos Gloria.

The government of Coahuila has set a reward of $200,000 Mexican pesos (around $15,400 dollars) for information leading to the arrest of each and every one of the criminals that escaped.

The biggest recent jailbreak in Mexico was on December 17 of 2010, when 141 convicts escaped from a Nuevo Laredo in the state of Tamaulipas, on the US border.

Editorial@sandiegored.com

Original Text: EFE Agency

Translation: Karen.balderas@sandiegored.com