The mafia broke Ecuador out of prison

The Littoral Penitentiary and the Regional Penitentiary, which are within the same prison complex, are the most populous prisons in Ecuador. They grow in the coastal city of Guayaquil. Between them they hold 10,000 prisoners, more than a quarter of the South American country’s prison population. And here the detainees are in control. Not only do they manage 15 pavilions, they also control drug trafficking and organized crime on the streets. They decide who they admit and who they don’t. They also have keys to their cells. This is how they have come to sow terror across the country, as happened on Tuesday in a day in which at least ten people, including two police officers, were killed.

Seven criminal gangs have been identified that hold power within the prison. In the three pavilions of the regional, Los Choneros rule, answering to José Adolfo Macias aka Fito. In the penitentiary, twelve pavilions are divided for each of the gangs known as Choe Killers, Aguilas, Fatales, Latin Kings, Lobos, Tigurones and the Mafia. Here was lit the spark that ignited the first prison massacre on February 23, 2021, where 79 inmates were beheaded. It was the beginning of an insecurity crisis that has escalated violently and dogged the last three governments that have not managed to control what happens inside prisons.

Ecuadorian cartel leaders have put President Daniel Noboa’s new government on the ropes with a wave of attacks that began on Sunday, January 7, when authorities discovered Los Choneros leader Fito was missing. Riots broke out in seven prisons.

The infrastructure of the regional pavilion allows you to clearly see the movements of the prisoners who go up and down the wooden staircase to the roof, talk on the phone and even have hammocks installed where they hang out. Everyone who passes through the main road can see them, as well as the prison guards inside, the police and the military who guard the first security ring at the prison entrance. Everything happens in the presence of those who are supposed to be in control.

“Prisons are cities where prisoners rule,” admits a police officer who has worked in two prisons. “He has his own business. In the regional, from the moment you enter, they offer the sale of roast chicken, there is a cart of salchipapa, morocho, they are a business of feeding the structure built inside.”

The obvious question is how the chickens, carts, gas cylinders, arms, ammunition, bombs, drugs, liquor, which have been seized in countless quantities, enter. The answer is SNAI, a corruption of system run by a government body. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which visited the country in 2021, said in a document to the government at the time: “Unprecedented corruption within prisons, which responds to years of state abandonment of the penal system.” Back, as well as the absence of a comprehensive criminal policy, which has led to “self-government”, which suggests that internal control is exercised by detainees.

The structure works with a leader for each pavilion who reports to the band’s maximum leader. A police officer who told EL PAIS how this corruption network works describes the position as “manager”. “Fito, for example, who was in the regional, did not necessarily know what was happening in one of the pavilions of the penitentiary, his gang leaders and those related to Los Choneros in each pavilion informed him. He was like the manager of Los Choneros,” he points out.

Leaders in each ward take charge of everything. The cells, measuring two by two meters, can house anywhere from one person to eight or ten people, all depending on how much they can pay. “If he wanted a good room, the drug traffickers paid $1,500 a month, the cell also had air conditioning, and that was for his and her safety.” 300 per month each in a cell with two bunk beds for four people. “Whoever doesn’t pay lives on the floor.” Each pavilion can go for up to $20,000 per month.

Hence, many of the conflicts between criminal gangs “are over the control of pavilions and penitentiary centers, motivated primarily by the economic benefits they can obtain through illegal businesses,” the IACHR warned in its report, and are also struggles for control and power. . takes place outside the prison.

The model of the Guayaquil prisons was replicated in different provinces of the country and others distributed under the command of different gangs. Cotopaxi, Quito, Cuenca, Machala, Chimborazo, which have featured recent prison riots, are under the control of Los Lobos, which seeks to dominate organized crime inside and outside Ecuadorian prisons.

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