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Thursday, September 30, 2021

116 Killed in Ecuador Prison Riot Between Cartel-Linked Gangs Los Lobos & Los Choneros

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

An enormous prison riot between rival gangs in Ecuador left at least 116 people dead, including five who were decapitated, according to authorities.

A battle between gangs in a prison killed at least 116 people and injured 80 in what authorities are calling the worst penitentiary massacre in Ecuador’s history. At least five of the dead were reported beheaded, officials said Wednesday. The deadly conflict was between Los Choneros, a gang with ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, and Los Lobos, who are linked with Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation cartel.

President Guillermo Lasso decreed a state of emergency in Ecuador’s prison system, allowing the government to deploy the police and soldiers to penitentiaries among other powers. Authorities attributed Tuesday’s bloodshed at the Litoral penitentiary in the coastal city of Guayaquil to gangs linked to international drug cartels fighting for control of the lockup.

Lasso, visibly affected, said at a news conference that what was happening in the Guayaquil prison was “bad and sad” and he could not for the moment guarantee that authorities had regained control of the lockup. “It is regrettable that the prisons are being turned into territories for power disputes by criminal gangs,” he said, adding that he would act with “absolute firmness” to regain control of the Litoral prison and prevent the violence from spreading to other penitentiaries.

Images circulating on social media showed dozens of bodies in the prison’s Pavilions 9 and 10 and scenes that looked like battlefields. The fighting was with firearms, knives, and bombs, officials said. Earlier, regional police commander Fausto Buenaño had said that bodies were being found in the prison’s pipelines.

Outside of the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Outside the prison morgue, the relatives of inmates wept, with some describing to reporters the cruelty with which their loved ones were killed, decapitated, and dismembered. “In the history of the country, there has not been an incident similar or close to this one,” said Ledy Zúñiga, the former president of Ecuador’s National Rehabilitation Council.

Zúñiga, who was also the country’s minister of justice in 2016, said she regretted that steps had not been taken to prevent another massacre following deadly prison riots last February. Earlier, officials said the violence erupted from a dispute between the “Los Lobos” and “Los Choneros” prison gangs.

Col. Mario Pazmiño, the former director of Ecuador’s military intelligence, said the bloody fighting shows that “transnational organized crime has permeated the structure” of Ecuador’s prisons, adding that Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels operate through local gangs.

“They want to sow fear,” he told The Associated Press on Wednesday, urging the government to temporarily cede control of the prisons to the National Police. “The more radical and violent the way they murder,” the more they achieve their goal of control, he added.

Ecuador’s president said that care points had been set up for relatives of the inmates with food and psychological support. He added that a $24 million program to address the country’s prisons will be accelerated, starting with investments in infrastructure and technology in the Litoral prison.

The former director of Ecuador’s prison bureau, Fausto Cobo, said that inside penitentiaries authorities face a “threat with power equal to or greater than the state itself.” He said that while security forces must enter prisons with shields and unarmed, they are met by inmates with high-caliber weapons.

In July, the president decreed another state of emergency in Ecuador’s prison system following several violent episodes that resulted in more than 100 inmates being killed. Those deaths occurred in various prisons and not in a single facility like Tuesday’s massacre.

Previously, the bloodiest day occurred in February, when 79 prisoners died in simultaneous riots in three prisons in the country. On July, 22 more prisoners lost their lives in the Litoral penitentiary, while in September a penitentiary center was attacked by drones leaving no fatalities.

8 comments:

  1. Holy shit- i thought the new mexico 1 was bad- this is a horror show literally worse than i can imagine- bombs and guns in prison?? Wow

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  2. Who won the battle Los lobos or Choners?

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  3. Sinaloa controls everything. The only real cartel everyone else are just common criminals.

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    Replies
    1. Without Salinas involvement the CDs would have been crushed. He controls mayo. Cartel de los sapos for all their snitching

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    2. Did you even read the article?
      Cjng was present wich means cjng is running shit in that country and prison systems.
      Cjng has their crew and cjng working with Los lagartos.
      Cds did run Mexico at one point when they were united and chapo was out.
      Now that he's locked up there is no real leader and cds is now at war.
      Cds is bumping heads everywhere with cjng because that's their biggest competition.
      Cds has never had a competitor with the power of cjng.

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  4. Mexican cartels makes ndrangheta or russian mafia looks like amateurs

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  5. Usually this happens when the prison becomes overpopulated. Group A. from one side of the prison, and Group B. from the other side of the prison, are let out or gates opened, and a massive brawl takes place. Clearing up the overpopulated prison. The prison officials are a part of it also, and know damn well they are the main cause for it. Not going to say 100% that that's what happened here, but it's a common method used in a lot of third world countries to control overpopulated prisons.

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  6. Reported here at BB that 79 prisoners were left dead in Ecuador. The clash occurred in (4) prisons simultaneously. Choneros, the armed section of CDS and the Lagartos, operating CJNG. (2) of the prisons were in Guayaquil, (1) in Cuenca and one at Cotapxi in Latacunga. These riots were planned, organized. This incident happened 2/26/2021. These riots probably shadow those riots reported now. fyi

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