Ecuador’s prison management company, SNAI, reported the death toll in a statement that also said another 21 people were injured in clashes between inmates.
In the past it had announced that tactical teams were carrying out operations to recover the facility, located in the Ecuadorian town of Latacunga.
The houses around 4,300 ers and is one of the largest in the country.
Violence in Ecuador’s prisons, where drug gangs vie for power, is perpetrated with knives and rarely leads to beheadings. The violence has left more than 400 dead since February 2021.
On Monday, detainees climbed onto rooftops as detonations were heard, according to television news footage.
Jorge Flores, deputy director of the SNAI, told reporters that Leandro Norero gave the impression of being “among the victims. “
Norero, suspected of ties to drug trafficking, one of the arrested leaders.
Known by the pseudonym “El Patrón”, he was arrested last May on charges of money laundering, in a business in which 6. 4 million dollars, 24 gold bars, firearms and ammunition would have been seized.
“On the death of the accused #LeandroN. , #FiscaliaEc reported that after the corresponding identification, the mavens will be to verify or not his death,” said the country’s Prosecutor’s Office.
Army and police tactical teams worked to retake the prison, the SNAI said, in what the provincial government called a successful operation.
“Control has been regained,” Cotopaxi province Gov. Oswaldo Coronel said late in the evening.
According to official estimates, the country’s prisons overcrowd some 35,000 inmates, many of whom are members of gangs linked to drug trafficking.
A government committee said in April that Ecuadorian prisons “are warehouses for human beings and torture centers. “
Bordering Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers, Ecuador serves as a port of departure for drug shipments, mainly to the United States and Europe.
In 2021, Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine.
Last year, the country of 17. 7 million people had a homicide rate of 14 equivalent to 100,000, nearly double the number in 2020.
In order to know the situation of Ecuadorian prisons, President Guillermo Lasso presented a census of detainees in August.
In a television interview Monday, he presented “a message of condolences and solidarity to the families of those who died today in (the prison). “