Authorities in Paraguay claimed a police officer and 11 prisoners were killed in a shooting Monday during an effort to transfer a drug trafficker who controlled part of a prison.
According to police commissioner Nimio Cardozo, the drug trafficker, Javier Rotela, was apprehended in an area of the prison known as "The Jungle," where he lived comfortably with his pregnant wife and three pit dogs and owned a small supermarket.
He stated almost 2,200 police and troops were involved in the raid at Tacumbu prison, about 15 blocks from the city, of Asuncion.
"We have counted 11 inmate deaths, most hit with projectiles," medical examiner Pablo Lemir told journalists.
According to Cardozo, prisoners opened fire on the cops, one of whom was wounded in the head and died, while another was in intensive care with a bullet wound to the temple.
As a search of the prison progressed, National Police Chief Carlos Benitez told journalists that an additional 36 policemen and 24 convicts suffered bullet wounds, a "partial count" as the search continued.
"With firmness and determination, we have carried out a historic and unprecedented operation in order to build a safer country for our families," President Santiago Pena said during a news conference.
"For decades, as everyone has known, Tacumbu Prison became a centre from where criminal groups operated, planning assaults and distributing narcotics," he went on to say.
"Today we say enough to... a penitentiary model that turned prisons into true schools of crime."
According to officials, Rotela is the leader of the "Rotela Clan," which is active in drug trafficking throughout Paraguay's urban areas.
According to criminologist Juan Martens, Rotela also commands 7,000 gang members in various prisons across the country.
Cardozo stated that automatic weapons were seized during the raid. Seven hundred detainees were placed into army and police buses, bare-chested and handcuffed, to be moved to other jails.
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