It’s not unusual for federal inmates to be transferred from one prison to another. But nine month 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS investigation uncovered those prisoners could be sitting right next to you and you would never know it.

Bus companies, police departments, even members of Congress reacted with shock after they found out what 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS discovered.

Every day, buses roll through Minnesota’s big cities and small towns as they make their way across the country.

But our investigation uncovered that on board these buses, travels an alarming secret—one that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has been keeping from passengers and authorities.

For months, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS rode buses and watched people come and go at bus stops and tracked passengers the BOP was trying to hide.

German Cruz looked just like any other passenger waiting for the bus in Rochester—bag in hand with a ticket to Houston, Tex.

What the bus driver and passengers don't know, is that Cruz woke up behind the barbed wire and steel bars of the federal prison in Rochester.

Cruz has another six months to serve. Court records indicate he was convicted of assault in New York, was deported, and then arrested again after entering the U.S. illegally.

Yet there he was on a Jefferson Bus on his way to another federal prison facility in Texas unescorted.

"I am shocked that active convicts were traveling on our buses," said Jefferson Bus Line President Charlie Zelle.

Zelle says he had no idea the federal government was using his buses to move prisoners around the country.

"Certainly this is something we would like to have known about and we didn't know that," he said.

It’s not just the Minnesota-based bus company that's in the dark about this prisoner transfer program. Corrections officials from other states have never heard of this, and neither have police chiefs across the state.

"I wouldn't want somebody coming through my town, eating in my café who is on his way to prison and I am not a ware of it," said Houston Police Chief and member of the Minnesota Police Chief’s Association David Breault. "This person is incarcerated or meant to be incarcerated and this gives them a way out and I put myself in their shoes. If I am going to prison for five years or I have a bus ticket in hand, why would I get on that bus?"

Then there’s Dwayne Fitzen—a drug-dealing member of a biker gang. He was serving time at the federal prison in Waseca.

Half way through his 24-year sentence, the BOP dropped him off on a bus bench in Owatonna, and told Fitzen he was supposed to go, ‘on his honor,’ to a prison in California. But he never made it there, bolting when he got to Las Vegas, Nev.

Five years later, federal agents are still trying to track him down.

Fitzen is not the only inmate to make a successful run for it. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS found at least 178 other inmates who have escaped as a result of being sent on their way on their honor, according to officials.

Our investigation uncovered that in the past three years, the BOP has transferred more than 89,000 prisoners unescorted across the U.S.

It was only after prisoners escaped while en route from one prison to another that Greyhound Bus Lines learned their buses were being used to move unescorted prisoners.

Greyhound officials have demanded an end to the program—only to have the government continue to put prisoners on their buses.

"We would never agree to transport anyone who is under prison authority," Zelle said.

"I don't think the buses should be used as Conair," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

Klobuchar, the former Hennepin County prosecutor, sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She, like so many others, had no idea this was happening.

"These are people being taken form one prison to another--so they are still in federal custody. I don't think anyone believes when somebody is in custody that they are just going to be put on a bus to another prison…I was very surprised and I think the public would be," she said.

As for Cruz, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS caught back up with him in Houston a day and a half after leaving Rochester.

According to prison records, he arrived in Texas and reported to prison for the rest of his sentence. A successful journey prison officials might argue—but an abuse of the public trust and disregard for public safety argues lawmakers, police and passengers.

Sen. Klobuchar says she sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, demanding to know why this program is allowed to continue.

Despite weeks of advanced notice, the BOP would not make anyone available for an interview on the issue until Tuesday.