Yuri Cortez/AFP
Venezuela seized back control of Tocorón prison on Wednesday, an institution in the north of the country that had been run by inmates for years, the news agency Agence France-Presse reported.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro deployed over 11,000 troops to gain back control of the facility in an operation that he called a "great success in the fight against criminal organizations."
The powerful Tren de Aragua gang had been in control of the prison and had filled it with a variety of luxuries over the years, including a pool, a small zoo with exotic animals like ostriches and flamingos, a nightclub, and a restaurant.
Yuri Cortez/AFP
Tren de Aragua started out as a construction union for a railway project in Venezuela in 2005, but it developed into an international criminal organization with operations in other countries like Chile and Colombia, per the think tank InSight Crime.
Some of its criminal activities include human trafficking, extortion, and migrant smuggling, while it is also suspected of dealing in arms and drug trafficking, the think tank says.
Yuri Cortez/AFP
The gang's leader, Héctor Guerrero Flores, who was serving a 17-year sentence for murder and drug trafficking, reportedly escaped, and the government subsequently issued a statement saying it was launching a "second phase" of the operation to capture "all and every one of the escaped criminals."
But the prison was not only home to the inmates but also to some of their relatives, AFP reported.
"I am waiting to hear where they are taking my husband... I was living in there, but they kicked us out," Gladys Hernández, who was living in the prison, said, per AFP.
Despite losing the prison, it is unlikely to be the end of the gang, Ronna Rísquez, author of the book "Tren de Aragua: The gang that revolutionised organised crime in Latin America," told BBC Mundo.
"Their centre of operations has been closed down, but the leaders of this organisation and its cells abroad can continue functioning," she said.
