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Americas|Guatemala Welcomes U.S. Help in Gang Crackdown After Prison Break
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/world/americas/guatemala-prison-break-penal-reforms.html
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President Bernardo Arévalo called an overhaul of his country’s prison system an “absolute priority” after 20 inmates accused of belonging to the Barrio 18 group were found to have escaped undetected.
Oct. 15, 2025, 8:52 p.m. ET
Days after it was revealed that scores of accused gang members had escaped unnoticed from a maximum-security prison, President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala called for an overhaul of the country’s prison system, where gangs are believed to operate unchecked amid rampant bribery and corruption, and said the United States would provide support.
“We will have the support of the F.B.I. and other United States security agencies, whose experience and technical capacity will strengthen our security systems and make our fight against organized crime more effective,” Mr. Arévalo said in a national address on Wednesday afternoon.
“We are not alone in this fight,” the president added.
The inmates who escaped from Fraijanes II prison, a maximum-security facility outside Guatemala City, were described by officials as high-ranking operatives from the Barrio 18 gang, which has long been linked to organized crime and violence around Central America and which the Trump administration designated as a foreign terrorist organization in late September.
The designation places Barrio 18 on the same list as MS-13, a rival group in neighboring El Salvador, as well as the region’s most powerful drug cartels.
The escape was initially revealed on Sunday by Guatemala’s director of prisons, who said that prison officials had only detected the scheme — in which inmates may have slipped out one by one, or in pairs — after hearing rumors and checking inmates’ biometric data.
The revelation immediately erupted into a political crisis, with the head of prisons dismissed and Guatemalans threatening to protest. On Wednesday, Mr. Arévalo announced that several senior officials — including Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez — would also be replaced.
