The corrupt plot of the Puerto III prison: 9,000 euros for a permit, 15,000 for a third degree

From 9,000 euros for a permit to 15,000 for a third degree. The alleged price catalog managed by the corrupt plot of the Puerto III prison, in El Puerto de Santa María, was varied. And the segment of clients they were mainly aimed at, specifically: drug trafficking prisoners with a lot of cash. The five detainees worked with these wickers this Wednesday to provide prison benefits in exchange for money, during Operation Ergástulo. The Civil Guard of Cádiz is investigating a former director of the center and the current administrator as alleged leaders of this corrupt network.

Both ended up arrested early this Wednesday in an operation led by the Investigative Court Number 5 of El Puerto, as sources close to the case have confirmed to EL PAÍS. The agents have traveled to the Puerto III penitentiary center – the largest of the three in the town, with capacity for more than a thousand prisoners – and to the home of one of the main people investigated to exploit an operation that ended at the end of 2022. and that also involves three other people who are not employees of the facilities, but who acted as collaborators in the network for purchasing prison benefits.

The Civil Guard was on the trail of the plot after, at the end of 2022, a woman reported that her partner had requested a prison permit and, while she was waiting for the assessment, another prisoner informed her that he could help her with the mediation of the staff. and after payment of financial compensation. During these two years, investigators from the Organic Unit of the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard of Cádiz have reconstructed the movements of an organized group that charged “from 9,000 euros for a permit and between 14,000 and 15,000 for a second degree pass. to third degree,” according to another source close to the case.

Among the two main investigators is the former director of the prison until 2020 and the current administrator, one of the most important positions in the center. The two weaved an alleged network in which they were able to influence the treatment board that must decide on prison benefits. To do this, they had the prisoner who served as a link with other inmates who might be interested in their services. To this they added another person who, outside the prison, took the necessary steps to convince relatives of the prisoners to pay the agreed money.

But the scheme also allegedly used fraud against its own clients. “There were times when, knowing the board’s resolutions, they delayed communication to the inmates, asked them for money and then made them believe that they had influenced their prison benefit,” points out the same source close to the investigations. For now, the scope of the economic benefit of those investigated, the number of inmates who agreed to pay them and the years they had been with their network is being investigated, but it is expected that the scope “is broad and that there are many cases,” he adds.

The way the ringleaders charged, in cash, and the amounts already marked the bias of their main clients in a prison filled with a multitude of drug traffickers from the Strait and the Guadalquivir, habitual holders of black money. One of the supposed beneficiaries was Isidoro M., alias The Gold, a well-known drug trafficker from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, also in the province of Cádiz, who was in prison until the first months of 2023. Isidoro M., according to the investigations, supposedly obtained a prison benefit alleging that he had a phobia of being locked up and He managed to have his mental health monitored by a private psychologist and not by the center. “He was laughable,” they point out from the investigation.

El Doro was already famous in his town thanks to his concert sponsorships—he hired international reggaeton artist Nicky Jam in 2019—and for his role as president of a modest soccer club, Unión Deportiva Algaida. The leap to the national spotlight came when, in November 2021, he ended up arrested accused of drug trafficking and money laundering. Isidoro, then arrested for drug trafficking and belonging to a criminal organization, was accused of having laundered at least three million euros from drug trafficking.

The detainees are being investigated for alleged crimes of use of secrets or privileged information, influence peddling, prevarication, bribery, fraud and extortion. The operation against the Puerto III plot has been directed by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Cádiz and has had the support of the current director of the center, Esther Serrano. “Their collaboration has been essential,” since the investigation. Penitentiary Institutions has avoided giving details of the case and has only insisted on “total collaboration” with the investigations.

This new corruption plot, in this case in prison, with drug traffickers among the main clients, puts the focus once again on the ability of the Strait drug trafficker to buy favors. To the list of police officers and civil guards who have ended up entangled and arrested for their alleged involvement with traffickers – who seek to buy from them in order to access valuable information on investigations and operations -, other professionals have been added in recent years, such as municipal officials – there is the municipal secretary of Jimena, arrested in 2019—, port stevedores and even notaries, like the one arrested in El Puerto in 2019.