Prison employees are behind leaks and other cases of corruption: authorities are investigating

The investigations are advancing, but the information is reserved. Investigators from the National Civil Police (PNC) have shaped an investigation into a structure that is allegedly made up of prison employees and that it would be involved in cases of corruption within the Penitentiary System (SP).

The preliminary investigation has focused on a group of alleged workers, including there are not only guards from the SP, but also from the inspectorate, prison analysis unit and the sub-directorate of operations.

Until today, the only ones that have been consigned, and have open administrative processes, are at least 10 prison guards, who participate in this network and receive large sums of money not only for transfers to other prisons, providing privileges to inmates and facilitating escapes while inmates go for medical visits.

Of the eight evasions that have been officially reported in 2022, four occurred in this way.
By a judge’s order, the inmates were taken, without following the official protocol with the corresponding custodian, to various public and private hospitals.

The last case that occurred was on November 9 when the prisoner, Bagner Alexander Morales García and/or Jorge Mario García, 39, alias the dwarf, escaped in zone 1 of the capital while attending a medical appointment.

The leader of the insane locos salvatruchas clique of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) was helped, presumably, by two accomplices of that criminal structure who arrived at a medical clinic in zone 1 and rescued him.

Until today the whereabouts of this gang member are unknown. who was in preventive detention since February 2020 in Pavoncito accused of murder and illicit association.

Investigations have been expedited by the way in which the leaks have occurred. The case of Morales García, despite being considered highly dangerous, was only sent with one custodian.

While in other cases the guards who have taken prisoners to care centers have said in their defense that “Relatives of the inmates have invited them to have a soda and after that they don’t remember anything. They are supposed to add some substance to it. This point is under investigation.”

Other evasions that are under investigation are those of Juan Manuel Galindo Ortiz, alias the tonka, on August 26 from Pavón. Galindo is the leader of the gang of kidnappers the cucules.

On August 8, Josué Daniel Castillo Gaspar, a drug trafficker, a member of the Zetas, who was serving a 150-year sentence in the Cantel penal farm for the massacre of 27 men on May 14, 2011 in Los Cocos, La Libertad, escaped. Peten.

Details

The SP spokesman, Carlos Morales, has confirmed that in each of the escapes prison guards have been made available, to whom an administrative process has been opened to determine their responsibility for the evasions. The PNC has delved into these investigations.

While the head of the Ministry of the Interior (Mingob) Napoléon Barrientos, confirmed that they are investigating these facts and assured that they are “committed to transforming the System and preventing cases of corruption from continuing to occur.”

The MP was consulted on the investigations that are being followed regarding the leaks, but so far they have not responded to a request for information that was generated on November 16.

co-opted system

For prison analyst Eddy Morales, one of the big problems that prisons have had in recent years “is the levels of corruption that have risen to unimaginable percentages”.

“It has deteriorated not only in overcrowding, but also in the bonding of staff with inmates, and even with directors of the country’s prisons,” Morales asserted.

The specialist added that this situation has caused the authorities to lose “the control of the SP and have weakened the institutional framework.”

“The basic problem is the abandonment of the System. That is used by the structures. Many of them are satisfied because they have arrived by compadrazgo and political commitments”, he indicated.

Morales considered that “The problem is that they arrive to obtain an economic benefit and not solve the problems.”

“That is why these structures are formed, in directions, sub-directions and headquarters. These networks begin to do business, internal and external contacts, to be able to go out to different health institutions. The law itself allows it, as long as it is authorized by a judge, ”he explained.

The analyst hopes that the investigation carried out by the authorities will be “deep and determine if there is any possibility that even judges are willing to receive gifts.” to authorize the release of a prisoner and transfer him to a health care center.

Morales stated that there could be several corruption networks and not just one that works in the SP.

“These structures could be made up of not just two or three people, they could be up to ten. That is why the cost of leaks is high,” Morales highlighted.

And that is why, he added, the criminal profile of those who have escaped so far is linked to drug trafficking, gangs and extortionists.

Morales recalled that the SP was weakened between 2015 and 2016 when they decided to appoint, without any prior analysis, guards as directors of prisons.

“There are good elements, but their career and securing retirement put them at risk of falling into acts of corruption.