Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, two vehicle explosions were recorded in the Ecuadorian capital. Both cars had gas cylinders inside. They did not leave victims, but caused damage to two state buildings; a headquarters of the SNAI, the state department in charge of the control and custody of Ecuador’s prisons and another that in the past had also been the headquarters of the organization.
Six detainees, no fatalities and an investigation underway to identify those responsible for the fires in the two vehicles that exploded two hours apart and a few kilometers away.
The first exploded near a commercial area in Quito, the capital. Police record that some suspects abandoned the car containing a slow-fuse explosive and two other men threw a flammable liquid on the car.
The explosion of this vehicle on the night of Wednesday, August 30, caused at least four explosions, leaving no victims, in front of the old building of the National Comprehensive Care Service for Persons Deprived of Liberty (SNAI).
UPDATE||
After preliminary verifications, it is established that individuals left the parked vehicle abandoned, on Robles and Amazonas streets, in #UIOsame as would have been found with a slow fuse artifact.
Later 2 citizens who… pic.twitter.com/NuoYdu1wyX
– Ecuador Police (@PoliciaEcuador) August 31, 2023
According to official statements, they found “two cylinders with fuel, a slow fuse, and apparently blocks of dynamite.”
The General of the Police, Pablo Ramírez, told local media that, although at first it was thought that it was a simple fire in a vehicle due to some technical failure, this action was later attributed as a “response of organized crime, due to a series of prisoner transfers” that took place this Wednesday.
This same modality was registered last year. Several car bombs exploded in the port city of Guayaquil, in what was attributed as a series of events related to attacks.
Without giving further details, the authorities also said that this Wednesday security incidents were reported at the Turi prison in Cuenca, where an undetermined number of inmates and prison staff are being held in a prison riot, with which citizens of the sector fear that it could Something worse will happen during the rest of the week.
🇪🇨 IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY: car bomb explodes in Quito, Ecuador
Due to what happened on Wednesday night, the National Police reported the arrest of six people, some of them with criminal records.
📹: courtesy.pic.twitter.com/cVYvytcARH
– ImpactoVenezuela (@ImpactoVE) August 31, 2023
The second car bomb, reported in the early hours of this Thursday, August 31, caused damage outside the current SNAI headquarters, in front of the Salesian University.
Regarding the detainees, Ramírez said in official statements that six people were detained several kilometers from the site, five of Ecuadorian nationality and one Colombian.
According to the records, most of them had criminal records for extortion, robbery and/or murder, and are now awaiting trial.
“Three of them were arrested 15 days ago for the theft of a truck and kidnapping for extortion in different parts of the city and they were released with alternative measures,” said the police chief.
Intervention plan in prisons
Just hours before these explosions occurred, an intervention by the Police and the Armed Forces was carried out in the Latacunga prison, in the Andean province of Cotopaxi, located some 70 kilometers south of Quito, which sparked riots in the prisons of the Andean cities of Cuenca and Azogues, the provincial capitals of Azuay and Cañar, respectively.
These three prisons (Latacunga, Cuenca and Azogues) are presumably controlled by the criminal gang Los Lobos, whose leaders include Luis Arboleda, better known as “Fat Luis”, arrested in Colombia in July and transferred to the maximum security prison in The rock.
Why are there simultaneous riots in Ecuador’s prisons?
Since mid-August, the government unveiled a plan to redouble efforts, the budget, and the number of troops to intervene in prisons, where violence, riots, and death threats among criminal gangs have increased.
The intervention in the Latacunga prison, the sixth of the most recent series of interventions, included the participation of more than 2,200 police and military personnel.
The objective was to seize bladed weapons, alcohol and electronic equipment prohibited in prisons.
On the other hand, the military and police intervention in the Cotopaxi prison caused prison riots in the cities of Cuenca and Azogues, the provincial capitals of Azuay and Cañar.
Violence, drug trafficking and organized crime
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, insecurity and violence have increased exponentially in different cities of Ecuador, a scourge that since before the arrival of Guillermo Lasso to power has been among the problems to be solved by the State and that has had different intentions to be resolved.
In November 2021, the SNAI began a plan to restructure the country’s prison system and allocated a budget of up to USD 125.5 million with a deadline of 2025; However, Ecuadorian media such as ‘El Universo’ and ‘Primicias’ denounce that when it comes to investment in the prison sector, the money is usually not fully allocated to these causes.
For this year, in March 2023, the newspapers recorded that from the approval of the budget in 2021 until the third month of the year, 16 months had already passed and the progress of the program had only 12%, that some works and contracts had not reached its level of execution and that the scenario was similar to what happened in previous years.
How Ecuador went from being one of the safest countries to one of the most violent
“In 2021, it was projected to invest USD 5.5 million, but less than one million was allocated; in 2022, USD 30 million was allocated, but USD 3.6 million was awarded; and in 2023, whose budget is USD 30 million, nothing has accrued until February, according to SNAI reports”, reads a publication in ‘El Universo’.
Since 2020, massacres in prisons have claimed the lives of more than 400 prisoners and part of the Government’s response has been to confiscate the weapons of the prisoners, but with events such as the explosion of car bombs, it is evident that violence and insecurity begins to establish itself in the streets of the South American country.
With EFE, Reuters and local media
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