Two dangerous prisoners serving their sentences in one of five high-security prisons across Brazil escaped early Tuesday morning. The prisoners, held at a prison in Mossoró, in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte state, were members of the Red Command, one of Brazil's most powerful crime groups. The escape – the first in the federal penitentiary system created in 2006 by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva due to the inability of state authorities to manage prisons – is testing this maximum security network and represents a serious crisis for the country Minister of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandowski, who has been in office for 15 days. Both inmates were transferred to this monitored prison four months ago after they led a riot at a prison in Acre that left five inmates dead, three of them beheaded. The minister has proposed building walls around prisons and increasing the number of guards.
According to local press, the first clues collected by investigators indicate that the prisoners were able to take advantage of the fact that the farm is currently being renovated to obtain building materials that would help them escape. According to the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, they allegedly made a hole in the ceiling of the cell and then cut the fence. Authorities have not released details about how Rogério da Silva Mendonã§a, 36, nicknamed Tatu, and Deibson Cabral Nascimento, 34, Deisinho, escaped. Both were subject to the harshest regime. In a press conference, Minister Lewandowski described the incident as serious, but added: “It occurred in a series of negative coincidences, fortuitous circumstances that unfortunately made the escape possible.”
In the morning in Mossoró, the national minister for penitentiary policy, André García, emphasized that “if the security protocols were followed, there would be no possibility of escape.” The high-ranking ministry official avoided speculation about the circumstances. “We are not ruling out any of the possibilities: relaxation.” [de los vigilantes]Relief [de la fuga por parte de los guardas] or what the research indicates. I can not say more.
The 75-year-old Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, who recently retired as a Supreme Court judge and took over the justice portfolio on the 1st, ordered that the members of the management of the Mossoró prison be immediately suspended from their duties. He has also ordered that visits and trips to the terrace, what is known here as sunbathing, are prohibited for the time being.
Río Grande do Norte Governor Fátima Bezerra has launched a tracking operation that includes road patrols, helicopter flights over the area and notifications to neighboring states of Paraíba and Ceará. The governor belongs to the Workers' Party, the same party as President Lula, who is on an official trip to Egypt.
There are five federal prisons and they are located in as many states. They were created to isolate and better monitor the top bosses of Brazil's main criminal gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC), a kind of brotherhood of criminals. the Red Command and other local groups. The first two are dedicated to drug trafficking, among other illegal businesses, and dominate prisons in different parts of the country.
The federal penitentiary system is also the counterpoint to the usual network of prisons, which depends on the states and often translates into prisons managed by the criminals themselves and in which there is a lot of violence and even the most basic defects. basic, sometimes even food. And if the prisoner has no relatives to bring him food or personal care products, he is left completely defenseless.
In high-security prisons like the one where the escape took place or where top PCC leader Marco Wilians Herbas Camacho, Marcola, is imprisoned in Brasilia, the prisoner is provided with a tracksuit, sneakers, a change of clothes and a toothbrush. Of course there is neither a gym nor a kitchen. The terrace is covered with a net to prevent air leaks. The water in the shower is turned off after five minutes and they are given razor blades that must be returned immediately after shaving. You can have books, but no lighters and smoking is not permitted. They are completely different prisons than ordinary prisons. But in Brazil there is a third, really striking modality: prisons in which the guards are the inmates themselves, a minority but a consolidated experience.
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