Weapons and even a recording studio. Venezuelan authorities on Wednesday regained control of the country's most populous prison under the control of gangs, the second in the space of a month. Admiral Remigio Ceballos, Minister of the Interior and Justice, announced on state television the "takeover" of Tocuyito prison in the north-central state of Carabobo. State media broadcast images of detainees sitting in handcuffs in the central courtyard of the prison, which has some 2000,<> inmates.
The dispatch of police and soldiers follows the evacuation on 20 September by 11,000 members of the security forces of the Tocoron prison in north-central France, which held some 1,600 inmates under the control of the dreaded Tren de Aragua gang, which had made it its headquarters. Tocoron was home to an arsenal of munitions and weapons of war, as well as a swimming pool, a nightclub, restaurants and even a zoo.
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"Holiday resort"
In Tocuyito, "we found an impressive amount of weapons and ammunition," Ceballos said. A recording studio was also discovered where Néstor Richardi Sequera Campos, alias "Richardi", one of the "chefs" of the prison, recorded songs that accumulated millions of views on his Youtube channel.
Sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder, "he should have been released in May 2018, but on his own initiative he decided to stay behind bars as if it were a holiday resort," said the NGO Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons (OVV). For years, "the control of prisons in Venezuela has been in the hands of the prisoners, they are the ones in charge," Carlos Nieto Palma, coordinator of the NGO A Window on Freedom, told AFP.
These prison "chiefs" practice racketeering of the prison population and drug trafficking under the guise of corrupt officials "among a host of other criminal activities," notes Carlos Nieto Palma. "Hopefully, this operation will help improve the Venezuelan prison system, which is in chaos."