The Tocorón penitentiary (one of the most dangerous prisons in Venezuela) has operated in recent years as a recreational park for some of the prisoners, with facilities that include swimming pools, housing, a baseball stadium, a zoo, restaurants, a horse betting center, a children’s playground, an ice cream parlor, motorcycles, a cockfighting center, drug sales outlets, and more.
A September 20 military intervention at the prison dismantled the base of operations of the Tren de Aragua (Aragua Train), the criminal organization that has spread in recent years to countries such as Chile, Colombia and Peru.
Countries with these criminal cells raised alerts in the aftermath to prevent the fugitives from entering their countries. A couple of weeks after the military operation in Venezuela, Peruvian police arrested 32 alleged members of the Tren de Aragua in that country.
Massive escape
The raid on the Venezuelan prison was the largest operation in recent years, involving 11,000 police and military personnel. Government sources said the objective was to dismantle organized criminal gangs and their networks operating inside Tocorón.
Around 500 prisoners escaped during the intervention, according to Spanish newspaper ABC. Meanwhile, the NGO Venezuelan Prison Observatory claimed that the leaders of the Tren de Aragua negotiated the handover of the prison in advance.
“The intervention was discussed with Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias Niño Guerrero, the top leader of the prison and of the Tren de Aragua, who left the prison days before the intervention. Likewise, those closest to him, his top lieutenants and associates, did so without informing the prison population,” said the NGO in a press release, adding that many of the prisoners escaped through tunnels.
Tren de Aragua
Although the prison intervention dismantled Tren de Aragua’s base of operations, analysts consider that it is not the end of the criminal gang, which has operations in 13 Venezuelan states and seven countries.
The Tren de Aragua is the largest organized crime group in Venezuela and one of the most important in Latin America. Their criminal range is multipurpose, which means they are alleged to be involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, micro drug trafficking, smuggling, migrant trafficking, car theft, kidnapping, extortion, contract killings and illegal gold mining.
The criminal gang was founded in 2013 by Chino Pradera, but after Pradera’s death in a confrontation with police, it was led by Niño Guerrero, who was serving a 17-year sentence for 12 crimes, including robbery, intentional homicide, document forgery, drug trafficking and more.
Luxury in Tocorón
When journalist Ronna Rísquez visited Tocorón some years ago (while researching about the penitentiary and the Tren de Aragua for her book) she saw the famous discotheque Tokyo, well known for holding parties where the general population was invited. According to one of the journalist’s sources, the government ordered the pranes (criminal leaders in prisons) to stop the non-private parties in order to be discreet.
She also talked about the armed prisoners guarding the prison with 9-millimeter pistols, AR-15 rifles, AK-103s and shotguns. Even the zoo was guarded on Guerrero’s orders, after an expensive snake disappeared.
However, not all inmates had access to these luxuries; many were confined to small areas. According to Rísquez’s conversation with one of the prisoners, they had to pay the pranes $15 a week to avoid corporal punishment. In addition, they paid $20 in rent for a 2×2 meter private space, among other fees.
Entire families lived inside the prison and the center functioned as a city. Following the recent action, it was found that a room with Bitcoin mining machines was operating on the premises.
A successful operation?
“We detected some tunnels. We have prevented a massive escape and we have controlled all the prisoners and we have also captured some people with weapons,” said the Venezuelan Minister of Interior and Justice, Remigio Ceballos, who described the operation as successful.
However, the general coordinator of the NGO A Window to Freedom, Carlos Nieto Palma, said that “with this action the government is recognizing the prison chaos and how negligent they have been in solving it.”
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, questioned the operation, saying, “An intervention in which they let the pranes go cannot be called successful and much less when it was the same pranes who surrendered Tocorón.”
The authorities announced that they are now in a second phase, which includes the capture of the fugitives. They also assured the public that Tocorón will undergo a restructuring process to prevent it from continuing to be a prison where “crime reigns.”
Analysts do not know if this restructuring will be possible. For years they have been warning about the irregularities in different prisons of the country, and have even found that some authorities have connections to the pranes.
Image: Miguel Á. Padriñán