Christian Beasley, a 32-year-old American man, is believed to have escaped on Monday from the overcrowded and understaffed Kerobokan prison on the resort island of Bali.
He had been arrested in August at a post office, allegedly trying to pick up a package containing five grammes of hashish.
He stood trial and the verdict was due one day after his escape.
Beasley is believed to have sawed through a ceiling and then climbed over a 20ft-high wall behind the prison.
Another American inmate, Paul Anthony Hoffman, was caught trying to escape along with Beasley.
Balinese police said Beasley had, in less than one day, reached the neighbouring island of Lombok by boat and was on the run for five days.
He was caught on Saturday in an alley near a beach, and an investigation is now under way to determine if Beasley had any help from prison guards during his escape.
According to the local office of the Law and Human Rights Ministry, jail breakouts in Indonesia are common, mostly due to a shortage of guards.
Prisons are also overcrowded, due to a government crackdown on drug crimes.
In Kerobokan, nearly 1,600 inmates occupy a prison built to accommodate 300 people.
Beasley's was the second escape from the prison since June, when four foreigners escaped through a drainage tunnel.
Two of them, Bulgarian Dimitar Nikolov Iliev and Indian Sayed Mohammed Said, were recaptured in East Timor days later.
The two others, Shaun Edward Davidson of Australia and Tee Koko King bin Tee Kim Sai of Malaysia, are still at large.