Prisoners’ escape from Ecuadorian prison touted as success on day of press visit

Ecuador’s armed forces confirmed Friday that three prisoners escaped from Latacunga prison, just before a guided tour organized by the government to show journalists a successful example of military intervention in a facility formerly controlled by violent gangs.

The escape from the Cotopaxi Penitentiary Number 1, located some 70 kilometers south of Quito, happened in the early hours of Thursday, the Armed Forces Joint Command confirmed in a statement released Friday. Journalists from national and international media, including EFE, had been invited to tour the prison on Thursday morning to see the “radical changes” that have taken place there since the military took control to liberate it from the hands of armed gangs.

During the visit, the military told journalists it had ended the extortion and coercion exercised by the criminal structures that used to control the wards. According to the armed forces, prisoners in Latacunga now have free access to three meals a day, water, and a place to sleep, and they no longer have to pay exorbitant amounts of money to the criminal leaders who previously controlled the prison internally.

The military also demonstrated the strict discipline and daily routines imposed on the prisoners for physical activity, cleaning, and maintenance of the penitentiary. However, upon seeing the journalists, some prisoners shouted that they had completed their sentences but hadn’t been released, and others complained that they lacked access to water and toilet paper. Some parts of the prison showed traces of the violence that has taken place inside, as the Latacunga prison, in the Andean province of Cotopaxi, has been one of the scenes of prison massacres between rival gangs, in which more than 450 prisoners have been killed since 2020.