Yes and no. Newspapers - with their narrow column-width - tend to adopt and adapt short words: 'slip' rather than 'escape from', 'pull' rather than 'be accepted for' (if that's what it means in this context - ah no, on second thoughts it probably means 'commit crimes'*), 'probe', 'leak', 'quest', 'grill' (in the sense 'interrogate')... etc. etc. These words are understood in that context.
b
*This sort of ambiguity is the sort of thing that newspapers regard as a risk worth taking.