The most remembered prisoner escapes in Colombia

In recent weeks, the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute -Inpec- has had to face different investigations because of the irregularities that occur in its operation. The first alert came when Carlos Mattos, a businessman accused of bribing judges in the Hyundai case, walked through the streets of the capital without any type of protocol or security support, under the excuse of a complex health situation. The second because of the escape carried out by one of the most wanted drug traffickers and member of the Gulf Clan, Juan Larrinson Castro Estupiñán, alias Matamba; and the third one this Sunday with the escape of another drug trafficker in the Itagüí prison: Andrés Oswaldo Gutiérrez, syndicated for the crime of a concert to commit crime, escaped.

Because in 2022, there have been so many scandals around detention centers and their officials, here are some escapes that have gone down in Colombian history:

1. Juan Larrinson Castro Estupiñán, alias Matamba (Drug Trafficker)

Alias Matamba, the extraditable right-hand man of the Gulf Clan leader, surprised the country and the international community in the early hours of Friday, March 18, 2022, when he learned that he had escaped. In the first instance it was believed that he was in another pavilion at a clandestine party. But then they realized that he was another subject and in the morning they finished confirming that the drug trafficker had escaped with Inpec garments and the help of the same dragotenants.

2. Aida Merlano (Former Senator accused of vote buying)

The former congresswoman eloped while she was at a dental appointment at the La Sabana Medical Center, in Bogotá. According to the security cameras, the fugitive took advantage of the carelessness of the people who were in charge of her security and threw herself from a third floor with the help of some white sheets and continued her escape by getting on a motorcycle.

Apparently there are many people related to his case, but so far no progress has been made in the investigation and Merlano is in Venezuela from where he accuses several Caribbean politicians as accomplices, including Alex Char.

3. Jesús Santrich (Guerrilla and drug trafficker)

The escape of the guerrilla leader came after he supposedly accepted the peace agreement of the Teatro Colón and was even elected as a representative of the House. In 2019, serious investigations were carried out that proved that the leader of the extinct FARC was continuing his criminal activities related to drug trafficking, so the Supreme Court of Justice summoned him and just one day after the meeting he started his flight.

The subject was in Tierra Grata, Cesar staying in a hotel in the area and took advantage of the carelessness of his bodyguards and escaped through the window of his room, left a letter stating that he was going to meet his son in Valledupar, but then appeared in a video with the dissident group that called itself 'La Nueva Marquetalia' announcing their returned to the criminal world. Some time later he would be discharged.

4. Andres Felipe Arías (Agro Secure Income)

In 2014, Andrés Felipe Arias escaped to the United States, after the Supreme Court of Justice found him guilty in the Agro Income Seguro case. In 2015, the US country granted him asylum, regardless of his 17-year and 4-month prison sentence by the Supreme Court; and finally in 2019, the former minister of the Alvaro Uribe Vélez government was extradited to Colombia to serve his sentence.

5. Pablo Escobar (Drug trafficker)

The head of the Medellín Cartel, who frightened the Colombian authorities for a long time, became an expert in escaping and negotiating. Escobar managed to evade justice on many occasions, but the one that attracted the most attention was the escape he carried out in the same prison he built, the La Catedral prison.

According to information of the time, the drug trafficker managed to escape after a year of being locked up and with the help of the same authorities. As he had created his confinement space himself, the capo left a plaster wall through which he left without any problem.

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