In Tocorón, the prison controlled by the ‘Tren de Aragua’, the Venezuelan gang that has extended its tentacles the most internationally to other countries in the region, there are swimming pools, a nightclub and sports facilities that any Caribbean resort would envy.
In this penitentiary who decides what is done is the ‘Train’ –involved in human trafficking, migrant smuggling, drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and murder in Chile, Peru and Colombia–. As in other Venezuelan prisons, the exterior is guarded by the National Guard, but from the walls inside, it is the mafia who controls how people live and how the resources of the endless illicit businesses that take place inside these prisons are allocated.
For this investigation by Runrunes and Connectas, seven Venezuelan prisons controlled by mafia bosses (‘pranes’) were studied and it was found that more than a dozen crimes or activities that generate millions of dollars for these structures are planned and controlled from their facilities. of organized crime.
According to visits to prisons carried out for this report, interviews with relatives and prisoners, and reports from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), these are illicit businesses such as drug trafficking, mining, kidnapping, scams, extortion, contract killings, arms trafficking, human trafficking and human trafficking. of migrants, among others.
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One of the most unlikely cases is that of the Carabobo Judicial Confinement Center, a prison located two hours from Caracas and known as Tocuyito. In this prison, weapons and drugs are exchanged like candy. There are businesses such as pig farming, sporting events, and one day a week they have their own version of the movie The Purge, in which prisoners close to the ‘pran’ are allowed to go outside the prison to rob.
The brain of this criminal structure is sold as a sports lover, a peaceful man. His name is Néstor Richardi Sequera Campos, alias Richardi or Papa, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the crime of aggravated homicide. He should have been free since May 2018, but like other ‘pranes’, he decided to stay and live in prison.
The power of ‘Richardi’ begins on the street, where women line up from the night before the day of the visit to get one of the 150 free places to enter. The rest of the visitors, by order of the ‘pran’, must pay five dollars.
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‘Richardi’ has imposed a pseudo-privatization of the prison, administered by him, which includes a variety of arbitrary charges to prisoners and their families. Only in the collection of tickets could be making at least 37,000 dollars (around 170 million pesos), if you add the nearly 4,000 people who enter weekly to visit inmates.
Based on interviews with family members and prisoners, NGO reports and visits to four prisons for this investigation, it was found that similar systems operate in the Vista Hermosa Judicial Confinement Center, Aragua Penitentiary Center (Tocorón), José Antonio Anzoátegui Judicial Confinement Center (Puente Ayala), Judicial Confinement Center of Trujillo, Oriente El Dorado Penitentiary Center and the Center for Arrests and Preventive Detentions of the Eastern Coast of the Lake (Retén de Cabimas), which operated under the control of ‘pranes’ until the end of 2021, when it was closed. The Barinas Judicial Confinement Center, the Yaracuy Judicial Confinement Center and the Eastern Monagas Region Penitentiary Center (La Pica) also have ‘pranes’.
The Runrunes and Connectas team managed to enter Tocuyito easily after paying five dollars. No name was asked, no identity card was requested and the journalist was not checked.
A tour of the prison revealed that the interior is like a small neighborhood, full of informal businesses. “These positions belong to the prisoners, but they have to pay the ‘pran’ as rent”, specifies José, a prisoner from Tocuyito interviewed for this work. The best positions are for the ‘pranes’ and their families.
Inside the patios you can also see large pigs, which move freely in the prison, another of the ‘pran’ businesses.
In the place there is a larger local, made of bricks, with glass doors and air conditioning. “That’s ‘Richardi’s’ delicatessen. You can get everything there: ham, chorizo, meat,” says José, adding that visitors are prohibited from bringing these products. “You can only buy that there,” adds José.
business mindset
Part of this food comes from the internal pig and chicken farms, which are controlled by ‘pranes’. But, according to police officials interviewed for this investigation, criminal groups also steal trucks, obtain the merchandise through agreements with officials, or through extortion against food companies.
In addition, relatives of inmates they denounced that the ‘pranes’, in complicity with officials, confiscate the food brought by the visitors, to then resell them to the same prisoners.
The business is such that between 2016 and 2019, the years of greatest scarcity in Venezuela, many people went to detention centers to buy food that was not available in supermarkets.
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Prison leaders have also set up shops outside. “We are no longer aware of screwing people. We have another mentality. Now each one (the three ‘pranes’) has their external businesses, but more like merchants”, he told Runrunes Edicson González, one of the ‘pranes’ of the Vista Hermosa prison.
He arrived in prison in 2010 and has already served his sentence, but, like ‘Richardi’, he preferred to stay. “Outside they apply it to you (they abuse) the police. They want to be ‘vaccinating’ us (extorting money). Here we are safer”, said González and Giovanny Navas, another ‘pran’ from Vista Hermosa, to justify his decision.
‘Cause’, luxuries and sports
The ’cause’ is a kind of tax that prisoners must pay weekly to the ‘pran’ to be able to move around the prison facilities and use the common areas. The prisoner who does not pay the ’cause’ is demoted and confined to uninhabitable areas.
In 2013, when Vista Hermosa was under the domain of alias Wilmito, this “pran” declared to Times magazine that he earned three million dollars a year (13,662 million pesos) by collecting the “cause” and other illegal activities.
Regarding the current functioning of the prison, Edicson González declared for this report: “We don’t like to say that there are rules. We prefer to talk about respect, about codes. Whoever breaks any of these codes we take them to church to meditate. And if he does the same thing again, the prison routine applies.”
The mother of a former prisoner explained that this “prison routine” consists of inflicting physical punishment on prisoners who do not comply with the rules of the ‘pranes’ or who do not pay the ’cause’. “They shoot them in the hands and feet, hit them and kill them,” said the mother of the former inmate.
The ‘pranes’ also charge tickets to allow them to stay in jail for the weekend or to access activities and recreational areas. There are prisons that have swimming pools, casinos, nightclubs or baseball stadiums, such as Tocorón and Tocuyito. In some sports events such as boxing nights or baseball games are held.
We don’t like to say that there are rules. We prefer to talk about respect, about codes. Whoever breaks them we take him to the church to meditate. And if not, the prison routine applies
A ‘pran’ linked to this type of event is Álvaro Enrique Montilla Briceño, alias El Loro, who commands the Trujillo Judicial Confinement Center. This Creole ‘Don King’ created his own company to promote professional boxers and has a boxing school, Loro Boxing Round, which operates in prison.
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But sport is not the only activity that occupies Montilla’s attention. For this investigation, we had access to a report prepared in December 2021, by the Criminal Investigations Division of Kidnapping of the Corps of Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations (CICPC) of Venezuela, which identified the ‘Loro’ as the leader of a gang responsible for a network of scams through Marketplace.
According to the document, the criminal organization, made up of 43 people, publishes false advertisements for the sale of vehicles on Facebook Marketplace, and summons interested parties to sparsely populated areas. There they steal their money or kidnap them if they don’t have it with them.
About 30 people have died in the last three years when they go to buy cars from Marketplace, according to press reports.
Terror on different levels
In March of this year, the Chilean authorities indicated that the ‘Tren de Aragua’ operates with a network of trafficking in Venezuelan women for sexual exploitation. also recently He has been accused of extorting webcam models in Bogotá and of being responsible for 23 murders. in which the bodies were found bagged in several points of that same city.
But the prisoners themselves and the communities near the prisons are often the first to be affected by the presence of these groups. Merchants, businessmen and even residents are charged ‘vaccines’ (extortion), to let them live in peace.
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And the terror they sow can go further. In Tocuyito, prisoners who are part of the ‘pran’ environment are allowed to carry large-caliber weapons and to leave the prison once a week. That day they can commit crimes in the street. Everything they get – money from kidnappings and robberies – is for them, they shouldn’t report it to the boss, explained prisoner José, before saying goodbye. A Venezuelan dystopia.
They control 50% of the total prison population
Charging admission to enter Venezuelan prisons is not a rule of the Ministry of Penitentiary Service (MSP), an entity that in theory should govern the country’s prison system. In the case of Tocuyito, the collection is an order from the ‘pran Richardi’, who controls criminal activity inside and outside the prison.
In Venezuela there are three types of prisons: those under the MSP regime, those controlled by ‘pranes’ and mixed ones (where both systems work). A study by the Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) concludes that more than half of the country’s prison population is in prisons controlled by ‘pranes’.
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