By Alexandra Valencia
QUITO (Reuters) – Two gang leaders who Ecuadorean authorities say are responsible for violence inside prisons were moved to a maximum security facility on Friday, the government said, part of efforts to reduce violence in the country’s chaotic jails.
At least five police officers were killed earlier this month in attacks in reaction to the transfer of about 1,000 prisoners, while at least two inmates died in related violence.
Ecuador’s prison system has faced structural problems for decades, but jail violence has soared since late 2020, killing at least 400 people and terrorizing inmates’ families.
The transferred leaders were identified by the government as alias Bermudez from Los Lobos gang and alias Anchundia from the R7 gang, who authorities say are responsible for recent violence in prisons in Quito and Santo Domingo respectively.
President Guillermo Lasso has repeatedly accused gangs of using violence to retaliate against his government’s efforts to combat them. Ecuador is used as a transit point for drugs bound for Europe and the United States.
“The government acts with all the rigor of the law to sanction the leaders of narco-terrorist mafias that provoke attacks, that’s why those who cause problems will be transferred to the maximum security prison,” Lasso’s office said in a statement.
Prisons agency SNAI reopened the maximum security La Roca prison in Guayaquil for gang leaders this year.
(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia, Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
