Marine from the Ecuadorian Armada next to the retained prisoners of the Guayaquil Penitentiary during the Armed Forces intervention, July 2023. Photo: teleSUR/File photo.
The criminal gang “Los Tiguerones” would have provoked the confrontation with an “external order,” according to police reports released by local media.
Ecuador registered the second prison massacre in a week, where at least 17 people were killed on Thursday, September 25 at the Detention Center in the province of Esmeraldas, as confirmed by the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI).
Police reports released by local media suggest that the confrontation may have been provoked by an “external order” attributed to the criminal gang “Los Tiguerones”.
The objective would have been to eliminate inmates who were not related to the group, including members of rival organizations such as “Los Lobos” and “Los Choneros” inside the prison.
The SNAI assured that the competent authorities are already investigating the events to clarify what happened. Meanwhile, the Ecuadorian army carries out control and security operations in the center.
The confrontation comes three days after another massacre. Last Monday, the Machala prison, located in southern Ecuador, was the scene of an attack that left 14 dead, including a prison guide, who was killed with multiple bullet wounds while trying to contain the riot.
It is presumed that the incident was the result of an aggression by the group “Los Lobos” directed against members of “Los Choneros” and the group “Los Lobos” itself.
The magnitude of the tragedy triggered a deployment of approximately 200 uniformed personnel, made up of personnel from the Police and the Armed Forces, who managed to retake control of the prison that houses more than 1,400 inmates.
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The massacres that Ecuador has experienced in the last five years have their direct origin in the country’s prison system and the criminal networks that have evolved within it.
Prisons, marked by a series of failed reforms, coupled with state negligence, corruption, and incapacity, provided the perfect environment for these criminal groups to thrive. Prisons became an essential economic base for these mafias. Through multimillion-dollar illegal businesses, the prison system has become one of Ecuador’s most lucrative criminal economies.
Driven by high profits, the mafias took advantage of the prison structure to establish connections with both street gangs and criminal elites, facilitating their territorial expansion outside the walls and giving them access to the upper echelons of organized crime, including the transnational cocaine trade.
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