This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

When armed police stormed a Venezuelan prison where 16 inmates had just been killed in rioting, they will not have been surprised to find assault rifles, hand grenades and a stash of plastic explosives.

But they will have been astonished to also discover a private menagerie consisting of pedigree dogs and jungle animals – including several endangered species.

Venezuelan jails – notorious for their dire conditions and overcrowding – are largely under the control of heavily armed inmates. The raid at Sabaneta prison, in the western state of Zulia, has however revealed the some of the prisoners were also avid wildlife collectors.

Among the animals being kept were an ocelot, several caymans, raccoons, and a couple of macaws, according to a regional newspaper, La Verdad.

More than a dozen farm animals were found, including turkeys, pigs and cows, as well as an unspecified number of purebred dogs, including pitbulls, neapolitan mastiffs, siberian huskies and yorkshire terriers. It is not known to which inmate or inmates the animals belonged.

Sabaneta prison was built for 700 but currently houses more than 3,700 inmates, as well more than 192 children living alongside their imprisoned parents.

Last week's riots, which erupted after rival gangs clashed in a dispute to gain control of the prison, were some of the most brutal in recent years. Humberto Prado, of the Venezuelan Prison Observatory, said several inmates were dismembered.

Last year, close to 600 inmates were killed inside the country's 34 prisons.

Venezuela's minister for penitentiary affairs, Iris Varela, ordered the Sabaneta prison to be evacuated while a thorough search was conducted to guarantee that no weapons remained inside. The inmates will be transferred to several of the other jails across the country.