Government begins the transfer of high-risk inmates to new maximum-security prison in Santa Elena

President Daniel Noboa announced Monday that the transfer of 300 high risk prisoners to the new maximum security Encuentro Prison in Santa Elena Province is underway. The new high-tech facility, based on the design of prisons in El Salvador, is intended to separate the country’s most violent inmates, including gang leaders, from the rest of the prison population.

Former vice president Jorge Glas is one of the prisoners transferred to the new maximum-security prison in Santa Elena Province.

The transfers began a day after a riot at the Machala prison which left 32 dead, 27 by hanging. The national prison authority SNAI said that 23 inmates involved in the riot are now at Encuentro.

Interior Minister John Reimberg hailed the opening of Encuentro, located in Juntas del Pacífico, as a “turning point” in the fight against crime. “We are today regaining control of our prisons and putting an end to the violence that has occurred there for years,” he said in an interview on Radio Canela. “This is a direct blow to the criminal structures that have been operating with impunity within our prisons.”

Reimberg said that putting the “most dangerous and most influential” prisoners in isolation without contact with the outside world is part of the government’s strategy to not only gain control of the prisons but to reduce crime. “We are transferring the most dangerous criminals in the country to Encuentro,” he said. “Criminals fear this prison and don’t want to go there because they know the life they had before is over. Their communication is cut off.”

Reimberg blamed Sunday’s riot at Machala on the “dread” of some prisoners of being transferred to Encuentro. SNAI said however that the violence was the result of conflicts between members of the Los Lobos gang and Los Sao-Box, a Los Lobos splinter group.

Among the first prisoners sent to Encuentro was former vice president Jorge Glas, who was transferred from La Roca prison in Guayaquil.

In addition to the 23 transfers from the Machala prison, the interior ministry said 16 inmates from Cotopaxi and 40 from Esmeraldas have been relocated to Encuentro. It said “many more” have been relocated from the Litoral and La Roca prisons in Guayaquil.

In a statement, the ministry said it will not release the names of most of those transferred for security reasons.

The Encuentro Prison has a capacity of 800. According to SNAI statistics, there is a total of 35,000 inmates in the country’s 13 prisons.