Sex, drugs and 'reggaeton' for prisoners and visitors in Venezuelan cells

ON THE outside, the San Antonio prison on Margarita Island looks like any other Venezuela jail. Soldiers stand at its gates. Sharpshooters squint from watchtowers. Guards eye up visitors before searching them at the entrance.

But inside, the jail for more than 2,000 inmates - Venezuelans and foreign drug traffickers - looks more like a Hugh-Hefner-inspired fleshpot than a stockade for law-breakers.

Bikini-clad female visitors frolic under the Caribbean sun in an outdoor pool. Marijuana smoke flavours the air. Reggaeton (Latin urban music) booms from a club filled with grinding couples. Paintings of the Playboy logo adorn the pool hall. Inmates and guests jostle to place bets at a raucous cockfighting arena.

"The Venezuelan prisoners here run the show, and that makes life easier for us all," said Fernando Acosta, 58, a Mexican pilot jailed in 2007. His cellmate, a Congolese businessman, hired him to fly a Gulfstream jet with two tonnes of cocaine to West Africa.

It is not uncommon for armed inmates to have a degree of autonomy in Venezuela's jails. Prisoners with BlackBerries and laptops have arranged drug deals, kidnappings and murders, a legacy of decades of overcrowding, corruption and too few guards.

But San Antonio jail, renowned on Margarita Island as a relatively tranquil place where even visitors can go for sinful weekend of partying, is in a class of its own.

The island is a departure point for drug shipments into the Caribbean and US. Traffickers end up in the jail, effectively overseeing life behind its walls with a surreal mix of hedonism and force. Some inmates walk the jail yard grasping assault rifles. The 130 women from the female annexe freely mix with the men.

"I was in the army ten years, I've played with guns all my life," says Paul Makin, 33, a Briton arrested in Porlamar for cocaine smuggling in 2009. "I've seen some guns in here I've never seen before. AK-47s, AR-15s, M-16s, Magnums, Colts, Uzis, Ingrams. You name them, it's in here."

Inmates say they owe their privileges to Tefilo Rodrguez, 40, a convicted drug trafficker who controls the guns. Rodrguez is the inmates' top leader - a "pran" as alpha prisoners are called.

Rodrguez also known as "El Conejo" (The Rabbit), is in charge, which explains the proliferation of his adopted trademark in the jail: paintings of the Playboy logo. Inside, opportunities flourish for inmates to cash in. Visitors from the island, a palm-fringed getaway destination, line up on weekends to place bets at the prison's cockfighting arena.

Other visitors, aware that guards search those coming in but not going out, buy drugs inside. Prisoners and visitors smoke dope and crack cocaine in an alley between the cells.

Fighting between gangs controlled by prans like Rodrguez contributes to a high number of killings in Venezuela's jails. An estimated 476 prisoners - about 1 per cent of the jail population of 44,520 - were killed last year alone.

Hoping to tackle the violence, overcrowding and other systemic issues, the Venezuelan government announced plans to create a new ministry of prisons. President Hugo Chvez singled out San Antonio jail on his Sunday TV slot in December 2009, celebrating the construction of a new 54-unit women's annexe.

But human rights groups say corruption and incompetence have stymied efforts to improve conditions. A series of inmate takeovers has underlined the troubles. In April, inmates outside Caracas took 22 officials hostage, including the warden, over a tuberculosis outbreak. The week-long standoff ended with the warden being replaced. In May, inmates at another jail took its warden and 14 staff hostage for 24 hours.

"The state has lost control of the prisons in Venezuela," says Carlos Nieto, director of Window to Freedom, which records rights violations.

Luis Gutirrez, warden at San Antonio, refused to discuss the jail he nominally oversees. At weekends, the ambience inside, bursting with spouses, lovers and some just looking for diversion, almost resembles the island's beach resorts. Prisoners barbecue meat while sipping whisky at poolside. In some cells, equipped with air-conditioning and satellite dishes, inmates relax with wives or girlfriends. (Venezuela, like other Latin American countries, allows conjugal visits.) The children of some inmates swim in one of the prison's four pools. A barber cuts hair. A stall called McLandro's sells snacks. A prisoner with a camera and laptop takes snaps and creates montages such as one in which inmates lean against a Hummer.

Prisoners boast that they built these perks themselves, with their own money. They say escapes are rare (inmates, still face being shot by soldiers outside). And while San Antonio can hardly be considered safe - a grenade attack on the hospital killed several men last year - inmates argue it is more tranquil than other jails.

"Our prison is a model institution," said Ivn Pealver, 33, a murderer who preaches at the jail's evangelical church.

Inmates' chief Rodrguez attributed the privileges to his rule. A mural at the jail depicts him as a train conductor, accompanied by subordinates pointing guns at a snitch hanging from a noose. "There's more security in here than out on the street," said Rodrguez, a thick-necked long-termer who barks orders into a mobile.

Asked about his ambitions on release, Rodrguez said he would consider politics.