Where Prisoners Can Do Anything They Want, Except Leave

Available: free lodging with frequent bikini parties, drugs, and guns. All you have to do, is get caught smuggling into Venezuela.

Welcome to the infamous San Antonio Prison on Margarita Island, where the inmates run the show and prisoners can do anything, except leave:

On the outside, the San Antonio prison on Margarita Island looks like any other Venezuelan penitentiary. Soldiers in green fatigues stand at its gates. Sharpshooters squint from watchtowers. Guards cast menacing glances at visitors before searching them at the entrance.

But once inside, the prison for more than 2,000 Venezuelans and foreigners held largely for drug trafficking looks more like a Hugh Hefner-inspired fleshpot than a stockade for toughened smugglers.

Bikini-clad female visitors frolic under the Caribbean sun in an outdoor pool. Marijuana smoke flavors the air. Reggaetón booms from a club filled with grinding couples. Paintings of the Playboy logo adorn the pool hall. Inmates and their guests jostle to place bets at the prison’s raucous cockfighting arena.

“The Venezuelan prisoners here run the show, and that makes life inside a bit easier for us all,” said Fernando Acosta, 58, a Mexican pilot jailed since 2007.

Simon Romero of The New York Times has the story: Link (Photo: Meridith Kohut)


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I just checked and it works for me. If it doesn't work, just do a web search for the name of this prison, and you will find many articles that sound quite different than this one!
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