A violent British inmate’s five months on the run after a mass Portuguese prison escape has come to an end with police intercepting him in a Porsche on Spain’s Costa Blanca.
Mark Roscaleer vanished after scaling a 20ft wall with a ladder at Vale de Judeus Prison in Alcoentre near Lisbon last September – nearly five years after a previous foiled jail break when he smothered his body in oil to squeeze through bars.
He was recaptured yesterday with another of the four men who escaped with him – convicted Argentinian bank robber and suspected child kidnapper and killer Rodolfo Lohrmann – in a black Porsche at a petrol station near Alicante.
Passenger Roscaleer, who had been serving nine years for kidnap and robbery, is said to have resisted arrest and left several officers injured. The Runcorn, Cheshire-born criminal is now facing extradition to Portugal along with Lohrmann, nicknamed ‘El Ruso’ or ‘The Russian’.
Local reports yesterday said the pair, regarded as the brains behind the September 7 2024 prison escape, had been working together in the same criminal gang after their prison escape. Spanish and Portuguese police chiefs are set to offer more information about the arrests and the inmates’ criminal activities while they were on the run at a press conference later today.
The recaptures of Roscaleer and Lohrmann mean all five prison escapes are now back behind bars. Portuguese national Fabio Loureiro was arrested in Morocco nearly a month after he absconded. Another Portuguese national, Fernando Ferreira, was discovered in the north of the country 48 days after he escaped and Georgian Shergili Farjiani held in Italy.
The mass jail escape led to the resignation of Rui Abrunhosa, the Director General of the Portuguese Prison and Probation Service, after it emerged it had taken guards 40 minutes to detect what had happened.
Confirming the arrests in Spain, Portugal’s Policia Judiciaria police force said in a statement late yesterday: “The last two escapees from Vale de Judeus Prison, Rodolfo Jose Lohrmann, 59, and Mark Cameron Roscaleer, 35, were arrested today in Alicante, Spain, by the Spanish National Police, after persistent and uninterrupted work by the PJ to gather and exchange information with the Spanish authorities. The two men had been on the run since September 7 2024. Since then, the PJ had been gathering information that enabled them to locate the fugitives in southern Spain.
“The Argentinian citizen, Rodolfo Jose Lohrmann, has an extensive criminal career, referenced by his involvement in highly organised and especially violent crime, on an international scale, including crimes of criminal association, money laundering, bank robbery, possession of a prohibited weapon, forgery/counterfeiting of documents and aggravated theft.
“He was serving a 20-year prison sentence, the date of his first imprisonment being 16 November 2016. The British citizen, Mark Cameron Roscaleer, has a record of committing particularly violent crimes, such as robbery with a firearm and kidnapping. He was serving a 9-year prison sentence, with his incarceration dating from May 10 2019. Both fugitives were subject to international arrest warrants issued by the competent judicial authority and were listed in Interpol’s red notice.”
Roscaleer was jailed after a trial at an Algarve court. The convicted burglar had been accused of putting a battery cable clamp on his victim’s nipple and penis with an accomplice named as Robert George Anthony Wood, then 20.
The torture session at an abandoned house on the Algarve led to the terrified 45-year-old victim revealing where he kept thousands of pounds in cash at home.
The British pair were extradited following the October 2 2018 incident after it was discovered they were in Spain.
State prosecutors accused them of robbing the victim at gunpoint before submitting him to “cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment” to try to force him into handing over more cash in an indictment submitted to Portimao Court ahead of the start of a trial which began on March 10 2020.
The guilty verdicts were made public on June 22 2020. Wood reportedly received a four-and-a-half year suspended prison sentence. Roscaleer was jailed for four years at Chester Crown Court in March 2014 after admitting to aggravated burglary at an Ellesmere Port pub with an accomplice.
Three judges at London’s Appeal Court later increased his sentence to seven years and four months for the May 8 2012 raid. He donned a balaclava and carried a claw hammer before ordering one of the licensees at the Gunners Arms pub to hand over the contents of the safe with the warning: “Get a move on or I’ll smash your skull in” and fleeing with £6,300.
At the time Roscaleer was said to have 18 previous convictions for 32 offences, including possessing an offensive weapon, burglary, battery and threatening behaviour. He sparked a police manhunt after escaping from prison in September 2015. He gave himself up at Runcorn police station after nine days on the run. Officers had delivered seven notices to associates warning them they would be prosecuted if found to be harbouring the criminal.
In August 2019 he made headlines again by trying to escape EP Lisbon, the same prison where convicted OAP drugs smuggler Roger Clarke was then serving time after being arrested with nearly £1million of cocaine on a cruise liner.
Roscaleer was said at the time to have smashed his cell window and smothered his body in oil in a bid to squeeze through bars he planned to saw through. Guards are understood to have thwarted his jailbreak around 11pm on August 18 2019 after catching him red-handed when they heard strange noises coming from his cell.
Portugal’s Justice Minister Rita Judice described the recapture of Roscaleer and Lohrmann overnight as “very gratifying.” She said: “It’s very gratifying to see that, five months after the escape of five dangerous inmates from Vale de Judeus, they have all been recaptured. This success is proof of the trust that citizens should have in our police.”
Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said: “It’s good news for justice, it’s good news for the Portuguese people, because it happened much more quickly than some would have thought, and it’s good that justice works like this.”
Spanish police had appealed for British holidaymakers’ help in tracking down Roscaleer. They went public with an appeal for help days after the escape as it emerged Portuguese authorities said they believed the British criminal and the other four fugitives could have crossed the border and be hiding out on or near the Costas.
Argentinian Lohrmann is regarded as the most violent of the five. As well as the crimes he was already serving time for in Portugal, he is also suspected of the kidnap and murders of at least two children of prominent South American politicians.