Honduras: 1,628 Gang Members Go to Maximum Security Prisons

On Tuesday, the Public Order Military Police (PMOP) transferred over 1,600 highly dangerous prisoners to two maximum security prisons in eastern and western Honduras.

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This happened in the framework of the "Faith and Hope" operation which President Xiomara Castro launched on June 20 after the killing of 46 women inside a prison.

"Without rest, the PMOP dismantles the schools of organized crime and retakes the prisons' control and security," Defense Minister Jose Manuel Zelaya said.

According to the National Penitentiary Institute (INP), 802 inmates from the Barrio 18 gang were transferred from the Ilama prison in the Santa Barbara department to the La Tolva prison in El Paraiso department. 

The Military Police also transferred 826 highly dangerous gang members of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) from La Tolva to El Pozo.

The Honduran government plans to build a maximum security prison on the Cisne Islands in the Caribbean Sea to isolate corrupt people, drug traffickers and gang bosses.

For a long time, dangerous and wealthy inmates have operated as "the only law" inside Honduran prisons. Official reports show that, despite being incarcerated, gang members, drug traffickers, and hitmen have ordered the commission of crimes in cities like Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula.

So far, Operation Faith and Hope, which has taken place in the 25 Honduran prisons, has allowed the authorities to seize 1,105 weapons and 23,925 projectiles.

These amounts, however, barely represent 10 percent of the weapons and ammunition that are presumed to exist inside the prisons, according to PMOP Director Ramiro Muñoz, who promised that the prisoners "will no longer control the prisons" while he occupy that position.

Previously, President Castro ordered the PMOP to recruit and train at least 2,000 new custodians of penal centers in order to comply with the National Penitentiary Institute Act.