‘I murder people!’ says Elanger matter-of-factly in response to my question about what he does for a living. From the comfort of my home in the UK, I have managed to get in touch, through contacts of contacts on Facebook, with someone serving 19 years in prison for double murder in Venezuela. The country has some of the most notorious jails in the world. Inside one of them, Elanger has got hold of a Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo.
Between 2010 and 2014, I lived in a student city called Mérida in the Venezuelan Andes. It is a beautiful old colonial town and was a fun place, full of bars and discos. In the end, I left because of an extortion attempt against me, and I have been curious about Venezuelan crime and prisons ever since, especially after meeting a German man who had spent three years inside one for trafficking cocaine.
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