The shadow of Alcatraz, the San Francisco prison that began as a hermetic detention center and ended as a legend after the famous escape in 1962, is projected over the high security prison in which Jorge Glas, the former vice president of Ecuador, which Daniel Noboa’s government detained when he was seeking asylum in the Mexican embassy in Quito. The Guayaquil complex inherited the name “The rock”. But instead of housing gangsters from the early 20th century, its cells hold stories of former officials, drug traffickers and escapes.
“This April 6, 2024, in compliance with the provisions issued by the competent judicial authority and, under a strict security operation coordinated together with the Armed Forces and National Police, citizen Jorge G. was transferred to the Center for Deprivation of Liberty (CPL). ) Guayas N° 3”, the National Service for Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (SNAI) reported before noon.
Of his transfer to complex 3, better known as “La Roca”, only two photos were known. In one, Glas appears handcuffed, with eyes closed, waist uncovered and legs half-open, inside a military truck. In the other, already standing, high security personnel with camouflage clothing, helmets and their faces covered surround him.
The Rock began to be built in 2006 to house high-profile prisoners. It was inaugurated in 2010, with a central objective: isolate the most dangerous criminals in the country. The same logic had guided its construction: to this day little is known about how many there are and how the prisoners live there.
But soon after becoming operational, “La Roca” demonstrated its security cracks.
Three months after its inauguration, the first escape attempt. In the following years, prisoners were shot and killed, even inside their own cells. The first escape took place in February 2013: 19 inmates defeated 14 guards, sneaked towards a river and escaped aboard a boat in which their accomplices were waiting for them.
In that group was a 34-year-old man, leader of the Los Choneros group and sentenced in 2012 to 34 years in prison for drug trafficking, organized crime and murder. His name is Adolfo Macías Villamar. All of Ecuador already knew him as “Issue”, the most dangerous criminal in the country, linked to the Sinaloa cartel. In recent months, his fame has reached continental reach.
Macías was transferred to a Regional prison in Guayaquil. From there, last January, he had to return to La Roca. When they went to look for him in his cell, they did not find him. It had gone up in smoke. Since then, his whereabouts have been a mystery. His trail reached Argentina, since his relatives moved to a country in Córdoba and then had to leave the country. But Fito is still a ghost.
That 2013 leak forced us to rethink the strategy. The doors of La Roca they closed for a long time. It took almost ten years, after which the authorities reopened the complex with guarantees of new security technologies, heavy investments and the promise of honoring the inherited nickname.
At that time, the prison had 189 places, although according to the Ecuadorian site Plan V The number of inmates would be reduced to 100. “Sadly famous leaders of criminal gangs,” as the then president Guillermo Lasso defined them in those days.
The Rock could not handle his own fame. On April 5, 2023, three people died and one was injured in a confrontation between prisoners, while the social temperature was rising in Ecuador.
And in September a new incident exposed security holes. It happened when a drone with explosives landed on the roof of the prison and the Police deployed an operation for a controlled explosion. Fito had returned to the place a few weeks before, but he was no longer there: they had taken him back to the Guayaquil regional prison after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
Due to the drone episode, they had to temporarily relocate the rest of the inmates.
Macías was going to return to La Roca on January 7. But they didn’t find him that day and the rest is history.
Glas, who was sentenced to eight years in prison and who is also accused of embezzlement in the reconstruction of the Manabí province (destroyed by an earthquake), will have famous company in that high security complex.
The newspaper The universe reported that among its 50 inmates are former officials, relatives of current officials and even one accused of the Villavicencio crime: Pablo Muentes (former assemblyman of the Social Christian Party, one of the spaces that until today assured a governability pact for Noboa) , Wilman Terán (former president of the Judiciary Council, detained for the Metastasis case), Carlos A. “Invisible” (he would have given the order to kill Villavicencio) and Francisco Barreiro (son of vice president Verónica Abad, in preventive detention for alleged offer of influence peddling).