Ecuador budgets US$ 125 million for two Bukele-style prisons

The two new prisons that the president of EcuadorDaniel Noboa, plans to build in the country under a model similar to that of his counterpart Nayib Bukele In El Salvador they will cost approximately US$ 125 million.

This was announced this Wednesday by the Vice Minister of Finance, Daniel Falconí, in a workshop on the draft state budget presented on Tuesday by the Government for its corresponding debate and approval in the National Assembly (Parliament).

This item of US$ 125 million is part of the Executive’s annual investment plan, which amounts to more than US$ 1.7 billion.

Falconí explained that this is the initial budget for the two prisons, which could rise to around US$140 million depending on certain variables in their construction.

The location of the two prisons is contemplated in the coastal province of Santa Elena and in the Amazonian province of Pastaza, where indigenous organizations have expressed their opposition to having this prison in their province.

The designs of these two prisons were presented in January by Noboa, who at the end of last year anticipated that the designs of the two penitentiary centers would be carried out by the companies that already designed the latest prisons that have been built in Mexico and El Salvador, as well as in Thailand and Singapore.

Although these two prisons have been compared to the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) built in El Salvador under Bukele’s mandate, their capacity will be much smaller, as each one will be designed to house 736 inmates, instead of 40,000. inmates that the Salvadoran Government assures are entering its famous penitentiary for gang members.

The two prisons will have a high security module with 160 cells, each for four inmates; a second maximum security module, with 32 cells and two prisoners in each one, and a “supermaximum” security for 32 inmates “with a high level of danger, one per cell.”

Noboa’s approach is to isolate in these prisons the leaders of the criminal gangs that have put the security of Ecuador in check with an unprecedented wave of violence and that internally control the Ecuadorian prisons, where due to rivalries between these organizations there has been one series of prison massacres since 2020 where more than 450 prisoners have died.

This violence also took to the streets with an escalation of murders that has made Ecuador one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America, with a homicide rate of about 45 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest since records have been recorded.

Currently in Ecuador there are 35 prisons operating where some 31,000 people are held, among them a considerable percentage in preventive regime, without a sentence issued.

At the beginning of January, Noboa elevated the fight against organized crime to the category of “internal armed conflict” and declared 22 criminal gangs operating in the country, mainly dedicated to drug trafficking, as terrorist groups to be neutralized by the Police and Armed Forces.

He did so after a spike in violence that saw the seizure of a television channel by an armed group during a live broadcast and simultaneous riots in several prisons in the country with 200 hostages who managed to be released.

During those riots, nearly 90 prisoners escaped, including Fabricio Colón Pico, considered the alleged leader of the Los Lobos criminal gang, while days before José Adolfo Macías Villamar (‘Fito’), the leader of Los Choneros, had done the same. , who was serving a 34-year prison sentence for homicide, drug trafficking and organized crime.