In a brazen scheme that may have involved escapes during prison visits, 20 inmates accused of being members of a major gang have slipped out of a Guatemalan prison and set off a sweeping manhunt, the authorities say.
The escapes took place over a period of time, but were only announced on Sunday, officials said. They came shortly after the American authorities designated the gang, Barrio 18, as a foreign terrorist organization, placing it on the same list as the region’s most notorious cartels.
The prison break has set off a nationwide manhunt, with 45,000 police officers taking part. It has also created a crisis for the government, with several prison officials dismissed and intense scrutiny falling on members of the president’s cabinet, though corruption has long plagued Guatemala.
Both members of President Bernardo Arévalo’s party and opposition lawmakers have called for an investigation.
The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala described the escapes as “utterly unacceptable,” and said in a statement on Sunday that the government “must act immediately and forcefully to recapture these terrorists, who pose a threat to both Guatemala and the security of U.S. territory.”
Guatemalan officials said they were coordinating with Interpol and the authorities in neighboring countries, “especially Mexico’s,” to track down the fugitives, Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez said at a news conference on Monday.
The escapees included high-ranking gang leaders, the Guatemalan government said. Only one has been recaptured so far.
“I’m not going to deny the reality — there’s no good explanation,” Mr. Jiménez said.
The prisoners escaped from the Fraijanes II prison, a maximum-security facility outside Guatemala City meant for gang members. When exactly they did so remains unclear, the director of the country’s prison system, Luis Alfonso Godínez, said at a news conference on Sunday.
For around two months there had been “rumors” of escapes, he said, adding that the inmates had likely slipped out gradually — “one by one or two by two” — and that some may have done so during prison visits.
In the past, leaders have had lower-ranking gang members take their place in prison, but officials said that such swaps did not appear to have occurred this time.
Security protocols at Fraijanes II were “weak,” Mr. Godínez said. The prison did not have technology to help with prisoner counts or to “confirm that the people incarcerated are the same people that appear in its records,” he said. He also mentioned the possibility that prison employees had been bribed by the gang.
The only fugitive to have been rearrested to date was identified as Byron Fajardo Revolorio, who is known as Black Demon. He is serving a 180-year sentence.
Mr. Godínez said Sunday that in response to the escapes, facial-recognition and other technology would be used to monitor the prisoner population.
The following day, Mr. Jiménez, the interior minister, announced that Mr. Godínez had been removed from his post, though he said he was not suspected of working with Barrio 18. The directors of several other prisons had also been dismissed over suspected ties to the gang, he said.
Mr. Jiménez also said that all prison directors would have to take polygraph tests. Citing corruption within the prison system, he called on the U.S. Embassy for assistance.
Barrio 18 has often been compared with the violent Salvadoran street gang MS-13, and was long active in neighboring El Salvador. There, thousands of Barrio 18 and MS-13 members are being held in the same maximum-security facility that El Salvador’s president often showcases online.
Mr. Jiménez has said there were some 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, with about 3,000 behind bars.
The crisis coincided with the transfer last month of the man believed to be the top leader of Barrio 18 in Guatemala, Aldo Dupie Ochoa, who is known as El Lobo, from Fraijanes II to another prison. The transfer prompted prison riots across the country, with gang members calling for his return to Fraijanes II. A judge eventually ordered that the gang leader be sent back.
Across Latin America, gang leaders often run their criminal organizations from behind bars, often with the aid of smuggled cellphones and other contraband. To do so, they rely on the widespread corruption among prison employees and government officials.
After the Fraijanes II escapes were revealed this week, the interior minister described collaboration between the Guatemalan authorities and the Trump administration to overhaul the prison system, including building a new facility for gang members.
“Talks are well underway with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of the maximum-security prison,” Mr. Jiménez said.,.
He said the government also had support from the U.S. government to collect biometric data in the prisons and to coordinate training for prison officers.
Since President Trump took office, the U.S. government has labeled around a dozen organized crime groups as terrorist organizations, a designation which opens the way for more aggressive action against them.
Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times.
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