International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2015 | страница 46

Organized Crime Behind Bars
circulated on social networks. Since then, “El Mocho” Soto has been El Gran Pran de
Maracaibo. By January 2013, battles between gangs had caused the deaths of sixty-one
inmates.
3 - Honduras, El Salvador: Barbaric Competition
A
“ticking time bomb” is how the El Porvenir prison, was described by José
Edgardo Coca, president of the Association of Prisoners at this establishment.
This was his analysis when eighty members of the Mara 18 88 were transferred
to the prison in February 2003; “La Mara 89 is unmanageable” he declared, and indeed
Mario Roberto Cerrato, leader of the Mara managed to injure him using a pistol 90
on April 5th. This event caused running battles between the two gangs, which were
then suppressed with extreme violence by the authorities—sixty-eight dead in total,
including sixty-one members of the Mara. The Deputy Minister of State Security,
Armando Calidonio was to declare “it is incredible that nothing happened the other
364 days of the year.” 91
Since then, twenty policemen and soldiers have been sentenced to between
three and thirty years 92 for the bloody suppression of the El Porvenir prison battle.
“The involvement of police and army was shown to be part of a policy of extermination
of young people involved with the Maras,” said the judge of the court of La Ceiba,
which retained charges of murder, attempted murder and violation of the duties of
a public official. The Human Rights Court prosecution revealed in November 2004
that the police had supplied weapons to the prisoners who had led the mutiny. Similar
accusations have been made in other countries.
Tensions and violence also flared in El Salvador where the Mara 18 and MS
13 pursue their street war in prison, often in the most barbaric way. This was the case
in the maximum security prison of Apanteos, near the city of Santa Ana. According
to the Prosecutor for Human Rights, Beatrice Alamanni, “it was a bloody massacre—
heads and feet could be seen under the rubble inside the cells.” Twenty-one people
were killed, often decapitated or disemboweled with makeshift weapons. Photographs
corroborate these claims.
88
A Central American offshoot of the 18th Street gang. Started in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s, it is
one of the most powerful gangs in the US with around 50,000 members and associates. Hispanic in
origin, it was the first gang to accept members from all backgrounds.
89
“The Gangs of Central America are called Maras, a term inspired a species of highly aggressive ants
[marabuntas], which attack in swarms.” Crackdown on Gangs Brings Mexico Violence, AP, December
10, 2003.
90
Which was never found.
91
New York Times, May 20, 2003.
92
In June 2008.
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