Bitcoin mining machines and rocket launchers have been among the many astonishing contraband present in a Venezuelan jail recaptured from a gang that had turned it right into a playground kitted out with a pool, a nightclub and a zoo.
Venezuelan authorities confirmed off the loot on Thursday after seizing management of the Tocoron jail in a large operation involving greater than 11,000 police and troopers backed up by tanks and armored autos.
One soldier was killed within the operation, which had been deliberate for greater than a yr, mentioned Interior and Justice Minister Remigio Ceballos.
The facility hit in Wednesday’s raid had served because the headquarters of the Tren de Aragua gang that operates in Venezuela and different Latin American nations.
Ceballos mentioned sniper rifles, explosives, rocket launchers and grenades have been seized, together with cocaine, marijuana and costly motorbikes.
The wives or girlfriends of inmates who had been dwelling inside with them have been kicked out.
At a press convention exterior the jail, authorities displayed buckets of bullets, heaps of machine gun ammunition belts and machines used to mine the cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
On Wednesday, AFP noticed officers carrying televisions, microwaves and air conditioners out of the jail as offended ladies exterior shouted, “That’s ours!”.
Ceballos mentioned zoo animals stored on the facility died in a fireplace began by prisoners. He didn’t say which creatures had lived there, or what number of.
The minister added that 4 jail guards have been arrested as suspected accomplices of the gang members who had lived up behind bars.
“There will be no impunity. We will act against all the criminals and accomplices,” mentioned Ceballos, hailing a “successful operation that allowed us to strike a blow against criminal groups.”
A KIND OF SLAVERY
After declaring it had taken management of the jail, the federal government started evacuating its 1,600 inmates to different places.
On Wednesday, the federal government mentioned some prisoners had managed to flee throughout the clampdown.
Ceballos mentioned the gang leaders had mistreated different prisoners and stored them in “a kind of slavery.”
Surrounded by riot police, dozens of family gathered exterior the power for information of the inmates being transferred.
“Where is my son?” cried Doris Colmenares, who mentioned he had escaped throughout Wednesday’s raid however turned himself in shortly thereafter.
Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s strongest home-grown gang, is concerned in crime countrywide and has unfold its tentacles to Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Bolivia.
According to an investigation by Venezuelan journalist Ronna Risquez, it has some 5,000 members.
The gang emerged a decade in the past, and is concerned in kidnappings, robberies, drug trafficking, prostitution, extortion and unlawful gold mining.
The InSight Crime suppose tank mentioned the gang can also be a serious participant in migrant smuggling.
Risquez mentioned Tocoron had been solely within the fingers of the gang and described the jail as a “hotel” for the gang leaders, with a financial institution, baseball area, and a restaurant.
This was confirmed by a number of of the ladies evicted from the jail.
The gang’s chief is Hector Guerrero Flores, who was serving a 17-year sentence in jail for homicide and drug trafficking, mentioned Carlos Nieto, coordinator of A Window for Freedom, a jail rights NGO.
Authorities haven’t commented on his whereabouts.
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Published On:
Sep 22, 2023
