Ecuador Prison Escape: Two Inmates Flee Cuenca Jail Once Hit by Massacres
ECUADOR · PRISONS
Key Facts
- —The country Ecuador, on South America’s Pacific coast between Colombia and Peru, has fought gang violence inside its prisons since 2021.
- —Why it matters Turi, Cuenca’s main prison, saw at least 33 inmates killed in February 2021 and 20 more in April 2022.
- —The background Since January 2024, under an ‘internal armed conflict’ decree, soldiers have helped secure Ecuador’s prisons.
- —What happened Two inmates escaped Turi before dawn on Monday 28 September, climbing down knotted bedsheets from a cell window.
- —What it means for you Police are searching in and around Cuenca, home to many foreign residents, and ask for tips on 1800 335486.
- —Still open The men were still at large on Tuesday morning, and how they passed the perimeter wall is not known.
An Ecuador prison escape early on Monday 28 September has put the Turi jail in Cuenca back in the news. Two inmates broke the bars of a cell window and climbed down a rope of knotted bedsheets, police said.
Colonel Julio Camacho, the new police commander for Azuay province, confirmed the escape to the Cuenca radio station La Voz del Tomebamba. As of Tuesday morning, 29 September, both men were still at large, the television channel Teleamazonas reported.
How the two men got out
Camacho said the two men forced and broke the bars of a small window in the cell they shared. They knotted bedsheets into a rope and lowered themselves into a prison yard, Primicias and El Comercio reported.
From there, police believe, they climbed a wall near guard post number 3 and left the grounds, the Guayaquil daily Expreso reported. A third man in the cell refused to join them, so the pair tied him up to stop him raising the alarm.
Police received the alert at around 3 a.m. Ecuador time, Camacho said, according to El Universo and the magazine Vistazo. A community camera in nearby Bellavista recorded two men running past at 2:38 a.m., the Cuenca daily El Mercurio reported.
Hours later a car was found abandoned in Bellavista, and police are checking whether it is linked to the escape. One officer told El Mercurio it might instead belong to a separate case.
Who the fugitives are
On Monday afternoon the National Police published a wanted notice with photographs and the names of both men, Primicias reported. The notice named them as José Javier Gaona Rosario and Julio Fernando Campoverde Bueno.
Police said one man was held for drug trafficking and the other for robbery. Vistazo reported that Gaona had been sentenced to 34 years and eight months for drug trafficking.
According to Vistazo, Campoverde had not yet been sentenced, and his robbery trial was set for 30 December. Early police accounts quoted by Primicias and Expreso had described both men as serving sentences.
El Mercurio, citing court records, reported that Gaona’s most recent drug trafficking case, opened in 2024, was still in progress. The accounts therefore differ, and the men’s exact legal status could not be independently confirmed.
“Your information may be key to finding them,” the police notice said, as quoted by Primicias. The notice asked anyone who has seen the men to report it straight away.
What police and the prison service are doing
Specialised police units searched the area outside the prison and alerted forces in other provinces, El Universo reported. Officers also checked addresses linked to the men’s relatives, while soldiers helped with inquiries inside the prison.
The officers on guard duty that night were placed at the disposal of prosecutors, which Camacho called the standard procedure. SNAI, the national agency that runs Ecuador’s prisons, confirmed on Monday afternoon that police were investigating and searching.
On Tuesday morning search teams were working through urban and rural parts of Cuenca, Teleamazonas reported. The broadcaster said both men remained at large.
Why Turi carries weight
Turi, officially the Azuay No. 1 detention centre, is one of the main prisons in southern Ecuador, Expreso noted. On 23 February 2021, prison riots in Guayaquil, Latacunga and Cuenca left 79 inmates dead, at least 33 at Turi.
A second massacre at Turi on 3 April 2022 killed 20 inmates, Primicias reported at the time. The outlet traced it to a feud between Los Lobos, then the prison’s dominant gang, and a smaller group called R7.
In January 2023 the provincial prosecutor, Leonardo Amoroso, described a wall of silence inside the prison. “In everything that has happened at Turi, nobody knew anything; there is a kind of secret or pact,” he told Primicias.
In early November 2025, police information seen by El Mercurio listed four inmate deaths at Turi, three of them violent. SNAI later listed four deaths at Turi and said forensic examinations would establish the causes.
Soldiers in the prisons
In January 2024 President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” against organised crime groups in Decree 111. Streets and prisons were militarised under that policy, according to Ecuador Chequea, an independent fact-checking outlet.
InSight Crime, which researches organised crime, links the military’s move into prisons to the fallout from one escape. Fito, head of the Los Choneros gang, fled prison in early 2024 and was caught in June 2025.
On 18 June 2026 Noboa replaced Decree 111 with Decree 424, which treats the conflict as a stand-alone legal fact. Ecuador Chequea noted that this avoids the automatic court review that emergency decrees face.
The prison agency says it is tightening control of its own staff. SNAI reported 265 dismissals of prison officials between 2024 and 2026, 82 of them this year, according to Expreso on 26 September.
In 2025 and 2026 the agency also made 15,607 relocations and 9,786 strategic transfers of inmates, the report said. It completed a prison census with biometric records in June 2026.
What rights monitors say
Rights monitors describe another side of military control. In 2026 Ecuador entered the Global Torture Index of the World Organisation Against Torture for the first time, Ecuador Chequea reported.
The index rated Ecuador at high or very high risk in five of its seven areas. Conditions for people in prison were rated very high risk, the most severe level on its scale.
Prosecutors logged 369 torture complaints between January 2024 and April 2026, the outlet reported. It added that Amnesty International had concluded the strategy did not reduce crime but increased human rights violations.
Ecuador Chequea also reported that access to prisons by independent bodies is restricted by decree. It noted that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had granted protective measures for Guayas No. 1 prison over its conditions.
What it means for Cuenca
Cuenca, in Ecuador’s southern Andes, is home to a large community of foreign residents. For now, the practical effect of the escape is a police search in and around the city.
Police ask anyone with information to call 1800 335486, a line Primicias described as confidential. The force has also alerted units in neighbouring provinces in case the men have left Azuay.
Living costs there are set out in Cost of Living Cuenca, Ecuador — Rent, Bills and Doctors, Priced in Dollars. For background on the country’s wider security situation, see Ecuador Explained: The Country, the Security Crisis, the Economy and What to Watch.
What comes next
The Ecuador prison escape now turns on how two men crossed a yard and a perimeter wall without being stopped. It is not known whether the guard post was staffed at the time or whether anyone outside helped.
Outlets also differ on which wing the men left from. El Universo and El Mercurio said a minimum-security wing, while Extra and Teleamazonas said medium security.
The escape does not mean the state has lost control of Turi, and no account describes a clash with guards. Nor does a single breach show whether military oversight of prisons is working, while its causes remain under investigation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Turi prison?
Turi is the common name of the Azuay No. 1 detention centre in Cuenca, one of the main prisons in southern Ecuador. Massacres there in February 2021 and April 2022 killed more than 50 inmates.
Have the two escaped inmates been caught?
As of Tuesday morning, 29 September, both men were still at large, Teleamazonas reported. Police are searching Cuenca after the Ecuador prison escape and have alerted forces in other provinces.
Who runs Ecuador’s prisons?
SNAI, a national government agency, manages the prisons, with support from the police and the armed forces. Soldiers joined prison security under the internal armed conflict declared in January 2024 and declared again, in a new form, in June 2026.
What should people in Cuenca do?
Police ask anyone who has seen the men or knows where they are to call 1800 335486. Information given on that line is treated as confidential, Primicias reported.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Read More from The Rio Times