Venezuelan government intervenes two penitentiary centers in Lara

The government of Venezuela reported this Saturday of intervention operations in two penitentiary centers in the state of Lara, in order to “consolidate a system penitentiary» with better conditions of «order, security and stability».

The operations are part of “Operation Gran Cacique Guaicaipuro”, begun last year to dismantle “prison mafias” that operate from these facilities, as well as to guarantee the conditions that allow inmates to “reintegrate as useful people to the nation.” , once they serve their sentence,” according to an official note.

In that sense, the Minister of Penitentiary Service, Julio García Zerpa, explained that the purpose of this type of actions is “the good development of these spaces, to ensure the new woman and the new man, whose social reintegration turns them into useful human beings.” for the social and economic progress of the country.

On Instagram, García Zerpa pointed out that, thanks to “joint work, the Venezuelan State continues to guarantee order, discipline and security in penitentiary centers, with Operation Gran Cacique Guaicaipuro”, without offering more details about the results of this new procedure.

Security deployment in penitentiary centers

On Friday, the NGO Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) indicated that it was a “massive deployment” of officials from different security forces – among them, the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), the National Guard (GNB) and the Bolivarian Service of Intelligence (Sebin) -, which “generated uncertainty among the relatives of the inmates, who approached the prisons in search of information.”

However, the OVP continued, officials ordered them to leave and “refused to provide details about what was happening.”

The non-governmental organization, which clarifies that it is not opposed to “thorough searches and reviews,” described it as “inhumane” that in these operations “there is no clear protocol to provide information and timely care to family members,” which is why – it added – The “information opacity on the part of the State” is “alarming.”

On November 6, military and police dismantled an “organized crime” gang in a prison located in the state of Bolívar (southern, bordering Brazil), during an intervention operation at the penitentiary center in which they found “drugs, weapons and cell phones.

In 2023, the authorities dismantled eight “prison mafias” in several military and police operations deployed in penitentiary centers, including the base of the transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua, which operated from the Tocorón prison, one of the prisons intervened.

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