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- Authorities are looking for a 30-year-old inmate who escaped a New York City prison barge.
- The facility has been placed on lockdown during the manhunt.
- The prison barge houses medium to maximum security prisoners in the Bronx.
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A manhunt is underway for a 30-year-old prisoner who authorities say escaped overnight from the Vernon C. Bain Center, a floating New York City prison barge.
"This morning, at the Vernon C. Bain Center (VCBC) in the Bronx, it was determined that an individual in custody was missing from his assigned housing area," NYC Department of Correction spokesman Peter Thorne told Insider in a statement. "Our Correction Intelligence Bureau immediately began working around-the-clock with our law enforcement partners at multiple levels. No escape from our facilities is ever acceptable and we are taking every step to locate and return this individual to custody."
Officers at the facility, which is nicknamed "The Boat," realized at 4:35 a.m. that inmate David Mordukhaev was missing from his housing area, according to the department.
The facility was then placed on lockdown.
Mordukhaev, of Brooklyn, was sentenced in 2013 for his involvement in a plot to burglarize a pharmacy in Marlboro Township, New Jersey, and sell the stolen narcotics, the Department of Justice announced at the time.
A New York Police Department spokesman referred all questions about the escape to the Department of Correction, but said police were alerted to the escape from the Bronx prison around 7 a.m. on Saturday.
The New York Post reported that Mordukhaev is believed to have ditched his uniform before fleeing the prison.
The Bain Center is a five-story jail barge that houses medium to maximum security inmates in 16 dormitories and 100 cells, according to a the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association, the union for employees at the facility.
"A thorough investigation into how this occurred is underway to ensure that this does not happen again, and disciplinary action, if warranted, will be taken at the conclusion of the investigation," Thorne said in his statement.