Inside 'war zone' jail with nightclub and restaurants where cons have shotguns

08 May 2024 , 19:38

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San Antonio prison, located on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, has been likened to a 'war zone' (Image: Sunday Mirror)

A British woman arrested in Venezuela for smuggling cocaine has described life in a notorious "party prison" where inmates armed with shotguns acted as guards.

Natalie Welsh said San Antonio prison, located on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, was "like a war zone" because of intense clashes between rival gangs. She told podcaster Dodge Woodall: "The Guardia [police] wouldn't even come in sometimes. There was just so much shooting the Guardia the police would just let them get on with it."

The prison, which was run by the inmates, had a swimming pool, restaurants and even a nightclub. Natalie said: "You can do anything you want in there, except get out."

Natalie Welsh was moved to the mixed-sex prison after being jailed for smuggling offences (nataliew3lsh/Instagram)

Natalie life began with wayward behaviour at a young age, with violent abuse from her stepfather contributing to her eventual spiral into crime, reports the Daily Star. By age 21 she was addicted to crack cocaine, and was recruited by a cocaine-smuggling gang, explaining to the podcast: "I could see people that I was working with had nice houses and nice things, and I wanted that life."

Though she says she always intended to get clean and buy a decent home for herself and her daughter Nikita, things took an abrupt turn for the worse when she was arrested with a suitcase full of cocaine at a Venezuelan airport. Police took her three-year-old child away from her, and locked her up in a filthy jail cell where there was one bucket serving as a toilet for 20 women. Describing the conditions inside, they recalled: "If you needed a poo, then you get a bin, then you put a carrier bag in the bucket and do a poo in the room, with no partition or anything."

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The prison is dominated by cartels and armed inmates (Sunday Mirror)

She was then transferred to the infamous San Antonio prison. Natalie - who did not speak the language and said she didn't have "a clue what was going on" - recalled how another inmate laughed when they heard Natalie was moving to the mixed-sex jail, and told her to expect to have a lot of sex. She said; "When I arrived, there were all these men patrolling the roof and I was just shocked at the state of them. They just looked rough bare-chested, with big shotguns and they were patrolling the roof. I just didn't understand why they didn't have to wear a uniform. I thought 'God, that's strange. Maybe it's because it's too hot or whatever.' Then I found out afterward that they weren't guards, they were prisoners. Prisoners with shotguns patrolling the roof of the prison."

Male and female prisoners were allowed to mix freely inside the extraordinary jail, but members of Venezuela's two main criminal cartels kept themselves separate much of the time. Armed convicts would ensure everybody stayed within their area - but this truce would often be broken with the eruption of a gang war.

Male and female prisoners mixed freely in the jail, although there were seperate sleeping areas for the sexes (Sunday Mirror)

Natalie explained: "When it kicked off it would be crazy. It was like a war zone in there sometimes. The Guardia [police] wouldn't even come in - there was just so much shooting, the Guardia were just letting them get on with it. One day, there was this war and it went on for three days. This was going on 24 hours a day, it just didn't stop for three days, and it was so intense. You've got 1,000 men trying to kill each other, and probably about 20 guards, maybe a few more outside."

She described the prison, which even had its own restaurants inside, as "a self-sufficient village contained within the perimeter of the walls", and said drugs are readily available for inmates to buy.

Natalie was eventually transferred to another jail, where she began a romance with one of the guards who helped her escape and head to the Colombian border. From Colombia, Natalie was freely able to fly back to the UK as she hadn't been convicted of a crime in this country. In the end, she served four years of a 10-year sentence. Natalie and boyfriend Jose have since found work, and she has written a book about her bizarre experience in Venezuela's "deadliest prison".

Michael Moran