Police and military officials took two days to regain control of the prison, the largest in Ecuador, where organized crime factions have been struggling for dominance.
Approximately 1,700 officers swarmed into five wards of the Guayas No. 1 Deprivation of Liberty Center, known as the Litoral Penitentiary. Since Wednesday morning, law enforcement has seized firearms, ammunition, explosive grenades, drugs, cell phones, routers, and cash (US dollars).
Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso said on Twitter, "We will continue with these controls until the last day of government as a mechanism to confront the corruption of the system and disarm the criminal organizations that operate within the centers. The state has to remain firm in its goal of controlling violence in prisons and on the streets."
Ecuador's prisons have become the front line of a gang war that erupted in 2020 following a split within what had been Ecuador's largest criminal group, the Choneros. According to media reports, the criminal groups in conflict in the Litoral Penitentiary are two splinter cells of the Choneros and now rivals: Los Lobos and Las Aguilas.
Born as a drug trafficking gang, the Choneros began to morph into prison gangs in 2011, when their leaders were imprisoned.
Today Ecuador's three largest prisons are the major hubs of prison violence in the country: the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, the Turi Rehabilitation Center in the city of Cuenca, and the Latacunga prison in Cotopaxi.
As of July 2023, nearly 500 prisoners had been reported killed in coordinated and brutal massacres, sometimes involving several prisons at the same time, InSight Crime reported. In addition, alleged police corruption within the prisons worsens the situation.
