Three escaped prisoners from Santo Domingo jail recaptured; three others remain at large
Three of six inmates who escaped from the Bellavista prison on 12 October have been recaptured and will be transferred to El Encuentro. The other three continue to be sought.
Three inmates recaptured from Bellavista prison in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas
Three of the six inmates who escaped from the Centre for Deprivation of Liberty of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas in the early morning of 12 October 2026 have been recaptured, confirmed this Wednesday by Interior Minister John Reimberg. According to extra.ec, the detainees will be transferred to the maximum-security prison El Encuentro, in Santa Elena province.
The three recaptured inmates were identified as John Moisés Chalco Zambrano, 28 years old, who was serving a sentence for murder; Serafín Sigifredo Vera Silva, 55 years old, held for rape; and José Marcelo Cevallos Zambrano, 32 years old, also for rape.
The other three men remain at large. They are Eduardo Manuel Arica Jara, 37 years old, originally detained for rape; Alexis Damián Rivas Meneses, 25 years old, for robbery; and Néstor Alfonso Guevara Moreta, 35 years old, for possession of controlled substances. The National Police is maintaining active search operations and has distributed photographs of the three to facilitate their location.
The six inmates shared a cell on the second floor of block D, corresponding to the maximum-security section of Bellavista prison. Lenin Peralta, Police commander of the Santo Domingo subzone, explained that the prisoners used an old hiding place in a pipe duct to prepare and execute the escape. The authorities are investigating how they managed to breach the security controls of the block.
Source: Google News DO — Santo Domingo