Five leaders of criminal gangs arrived on Monday night at the maximum security prison, ‘La Roca’ for leading the massacre in the Cuenca prison, which left 20 dead. They join the list of inmates who have stayed at the detention center located at kilometer 17 of the road to Daule-Guayaquil, where there is another group of rival gang leaders.
Who are the five inmates transferred to ‘La Roca’ prison after the massacre in Turi?
‘La Roca’ was built in 2008 and two years later it was handed over to the Ministry of Justice. This center has three exterior walls that make up the perimeter wall of the deprivation of liberty center, so if an inmate tries to escape he must go through three exterior walls guarded by terraces and sentry boxes guarded by the National Police.
The prison center has a capacity to house up to 200 inmates and since its opening the most dangerous ringleaders and detainees in the country have been held. In February 2013, 19 highly dangerous inmates escaped. Among them, Jorge Luis Zambrano, ‘alias Rasquiña’ together with his members of the band ‘Los Choneros’.’ A planned escape. The Police took about 10 months to recapture them.
In the patio of ‘La Roca’ he was murdered in 2013 Oscar Caranqui. A prisoner identified by the then Minister of the Interior, José Serrano, confessed during an indictment hearing to having murdered Caranqui. The businessman had been convicted of drug trafficking, he received several shots in the chest and head, when he was in the prison yard.
Inside the prison, Caranqui wrote a book “La Roca, cemetery of living men”in which he denounced alleged murders and torture by public officials, but was never circulated by court order despite the fact that 100,000 copies were printed.
‘La Roca’ also housed the brothers Walter and William Poveda Salazar, alias ‘El Caymán y El Cubano’ respectively. They were alleged leaders of the criminal gang “Los Cubanos” and were imprisoned for drug trafficking and for the murder of two prison directors. Both were transferred from the maximum security pavilion of ‘La Roca’ to the Bellavista Prison, in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, after having been victims of a firearm attack.
However, in a shootout inside the prison in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, due to a confrontation between gangs, the life of alias “El Caimán” ended. The Poveda Salazars were enemies of ‘Los Choneros’. In 2019, alias ‘El Cubano’ was shot, decapitated and cremated at the Regional Deprivation Center for a rematch between gangs.
Jorge Luis Zambrano‘alias Rasquiña ‘was the leader of the criminal organization ‘Los Choneros’, was another of the guests of “La Roca” since he was serving a 20-year sentence for murder.
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In 2013, he and 18 other prisoners escaped from prison in a planned manner as there were no signs of violence. Movie-style, they fled in civilian clothes, others in medical aprons, and out the door.
Rasquiña was the last to be found and after regaining his freedom, he was murdered in a Manta shopping center in 2020.