Brian McDonald
Guatemalan police on Sunday transferred more than 200 gang members from a prison where they operated a call center for criminal purposes, raised chickens and watched a lake full of crocodiles.
About 400 police officers were involved in the operation to remove 225 members of the Barrio 18 gang from the prison nicknamed “El Infiernito” or Little Hell, where they had access to luxuries such as televisions and refrigerators, and even raised chickens, authorities said.
JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP via Getty Images
“The prison once again belongs to the country,” said Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez announced on the social networks.
He promised that the facility would be demolished and rebuilt as a “true maximum security prison.” writing on social media: “These are prisons, NOT holidays.”
Videos and images of the facilities released by authorities showed that inmates even had air conditioning at Escuintla prison, about 70 kilometers south of the capital.
In a previous search, police disabled an improvised “call center” from where gangsters committed extortion and ordered crimes to be committed.
The minister blamed “previous governments” for “giving control of prisons to criminals”.
The operation came just days after new president Bernardo Arevalo said that some areas of Guatemala City were being held “prisoner” by gangs, while the UN called for an end to the recruitment of minors by criminal groups.
The Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha gangs are fighting in Guatemala for control of a territory where they extort money from companies and individuals – killing those who refuse, according to authorities.
Criminal violence claimed 4,361 lives in the country in 2023 – a rate of 25 per 100,000 inhabitants – half of which were attributed to gang fights and drug trafficking.
Guatemala’s prisons have been plagued by violence in recent years.
In 2021, police said at least seven prisoners were killed during a fight between rival gangs at a prison in Quetzaltenango, according to the BBC. reported. Most of them were beheaded when members of the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs attacked each other.
In 2020, arrested members of the Barrio 18 gang took 10 guards hostage in retaliation for the transfer of some of its leaders to another prison. The guards were later released.
In 2019 at least seven people were killed in a prison shooting near Guatemala’s capital, Guatemala City. In 2016, a prison riot in Guatemala left at least eight dead prisoners and more than 20 injured.
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