For the third time and through the main door of La Picota penitentiary, Juan Larrinson Castro Estupiñán, alias Matamba, escaped. He is one of the most feared criminals of the Clan del Golfo, requested in extradition and of whom Just a few weeks ago it became known that he had co-opted a group of Nariño soldiers, who, in exchange for large sums of money, guaranteed their criminal actions.
A video taken by the prison’s closed circuit cameras, known in its entirety by SEMANA, became the main test of how this noted drug trafficker managed to escape from one of the most important prisons in the country.
This is the hitherto unpublished story of how the escape of one of the most wanted and dangerous criminals was planned and executed, who left La Picota without using force, at the tip of millionaire bribes with which he would have bought some of the Inpec surveillance and custody men.
The recording shows, at 1:04 in the morning, how Matamba leaves his cell, uniformed from head to toe and wearing a black jacket with a hood. He speaks with an Inpec guard who, aware of the cameras, positions himself so that he is not recorded. The cell door had no padlock or lock, he opened it as if it were his house.
Matamba sees himself alone, but always a few meters away you can see that he receives instructions from the guard, to the point that at one point he takes the wrong path and after a few signs he corrects his course towards his exit. The cameras follow him through the corridors of the patio of the Special Measures Unit, while his companions sleep in the cells.
The images are darkened by the complicity of the night. There is no warning signal, everything seems normal while Matamba advances. At the end, he raises his hand in approval and almost goodbye when he accomplishes one of his goals. Other cameras, apparently, were manipulated so that there was no evidence, even in some passages blurred images are seen.
His departure was uneventful. Due to the late hours in which the leak occurred, there were no major stumbling blocks at each of the security checkpoints. His accomplices were in charge of helping him to cross the doors without any hesitation, implying that whoever was passing was one more of the guard.
At the exit, Matamba said goodbye to his “companions” saying that he was finishing shift and that he was going home. Outside La Picota there was a vehicle waiting for him, in which he fled.
This video is already part of the evidence collected by a commission from the Prosecutor’s Office, which since Friday morning went to the prison and took over the investigation of this serious escape, which is added to the scandals that have occurred in recent weeks in The Picot.
In a few hours, the Prosecutor’s Office had already made the first decisions. An Inpec guard accused of being one of the main accomplices was captured. However, there is information that there would be at least six guards involved in this event. The investigators are collecting the evidence to be able to request their arrests, which would be effective in the next few hours.
On Friday night, the attorney general, Margarita Cabello, who described the escape from Matamba as a “shame”, announced harsh measures. The Public Ministry suspended 55 dragoonists, the director of La Picota, Major Juan Javier Papa Gordillo, and the deputy director, Óscar Augusto Bedoya Méndez.
SEMANA learned of the concern of the United States authorities in the face of these serious events. The safest thing is that they request arrest warrants for extradition purposes against the guards and people complicit in the escape of the powerful drug trafficker. This criminal is so important for the justice of that country, due to the information about the Clan del Golfo and its links with Mexican cartels, that they even offered help to recapture him and bring him before the judges.
Another important piece of information obtained by the researchers is that the changing of the guard that was to take place at midnight did not occur as usual, since some of these members only appeared after 1:30 in the morning, when Matamba had already fled.
After eight in the morning, as is routine, the count of the detainees began and at that moment they realized that one person was missing, nothing more and nothing less than Matamba. Then the alarms went off, but hours had already passed since the drug trafficker crossed the threshold of the door of La Picota.
There the guard made the first officially registered calls, notifying Inpec of what was happening. Strangely, the rumor began to spread that Matamba had gotten drunk and was in a different cell. This was apparently part of the strategy to distract the operations that were being carried out and give him more time to hide.
The first clues collected by the authorities indicate that it was a criminal plan orchestrated for at least two months, from outside La Picota, by powerful leaders of the Clan del Golfo, who allocated millions of dollars to carry it out. It is evident that they managed to bribe and infiltrate people inside the prison. The escape had to be accelerated because in a matter of days Matamba’s security measures could be increased due to his imminent extradition to the United States.
This escape coincides with the plans that men from the Clan del Golfo, allied with Mexican cartels, would also have to seek the escape of the maximum leader of the organization, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias Otoniel, held in the Dijín bunker precisely to prevent his escape. .
Given the seriousness of the facts, there are voices that are asking the Supreme Court of Justice to speed up Otoniel’s extradition procedures and even asked President Iván Duque to send him immediately, citing reasons of force majeure.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office already have some evidence. In addition, they are collecting more evidence and testimonies from Inpec members who were on duty between Thursday night and Friday morning. In fact, they seem to have found inconsistencies in the shifts assigned to Guardians.
There is no kind of explanation why Matamba, who has just been proven to have bribed the Army in the south of the country to be able to traffic drugs at will, is turned over to the authorities for the third time, and this time through the main door, Just as the third man in the hierarchy of the Cali Cartel leadership, José ‘Chepe’ Santacruz, did 26 years ago. The stories repeat themselves and nothing happens.
However, with the drug trafficker out on the street, President Duque announced a fundamental reform. “No more cloths of warm water in front of Inpec. We are going to propose a comprehensive reform of the prison system and we will work with the government team in that direction,” said the president.