The Venezuelan singer “Rsiete” is a mysterious figure. A full view of his face is nowhere to be found on social media — he is always seen wearing a balaclava, covering all but his eyes, even when he sings in his music videos. His newest song, released on February 29, is about imprisonment. The song was promoted as coming “directly from the prison in Venezuela.”
Rsiete, whose real name is Néstor Richardi Sequera Campos, does not only sing about imprisonment. He lives it. And, for years, Sequera Campos, also known as “Richardi” or “El Papa,” was the pran, or criminal leader, who controlled the Tocuyito prison in the northern state of Carabobo.
There, from behind prison walls, he used his criminal power to launch an international reggaeton career. But Richardi’s tale — and his success — tells a bigger story: that of a unique moment in Venezuela’s prison criminal dynamic, which, according to the official narrative, has come crashing to an end.
SEE ALSO: Is the ‘Pran’ System in Venezuela’s Prisons Finished?
Being in prison enabled Richardi to achieve a level of fame that he may not have reached on the outside.
Among the luxuries that Richardi enjoyed in Tocuyito was a state-of-the-art music studio. Images of the studio posted on Richardi’s Instagram account show professional sound studio equipment, with a Mac computer atop bright white tables. The ceilings glowed with colored light, embedded with a glowing “R7” logo – a reference to his artist name – and one wall was adorned with the logos of the Grammy Awards, Billboard, and MTV.
A person with access to Richardi’s Instagram account responded to InSight Crime’s request for comment, claiming to be Richardi himself. The music studio, he said, was donated to him by friends, though he gave no indication of how the equipment was allowed to enter the prison, nor how he was permitted the space.
“I have friends who are baseball players, artists, and businessmen who supported me to build the studio and gave me all the equipment,” he said.
But in September 2023, the Venezuelan government began a crackdown that it promised would take back control of the country’s prisons from powerful crime bosses like Richardi. Within weeks, the military took over Tocuyito. Videos on social media filmed on the day of the intervention at Tocuyito showed prisoners burning things and destroying facilities, saying “the house has fallen.” All prisoners, powerful or not, were removed from the prison.
Just before the takeover began, Richardi posted a goodbye message, which has since been deleted, to his hundreds of thousands of fans and supporters on Instagram, assuring them that “wherever I am, my focus will be music.”
The Pranato System: Granting Criminal Liberties Within Prisons
The earliest mention of Richardi’s criminal career was in 1999, when he was imprisoned for homicide and sentenced to serve 20 years in Tocuyito.
About halfway through his sentence, in 2011, the Venezuelan prison system underwent a significant change. The government handed control of a number of Venezuela’s prisons to criminal leaders known as pranes. In exchange for reducing politically embarrassing outbreaks of violence, the pranes were allowed to continue their criminal operations, often kicking some of their profits back to corrupt officials.
Richardi rose through the ranks, becoming second in command to Wilmer Brizuela, alias “Wilmito,” who is widely considered Venezuela’s first pran. According to local media, Wilmito left for another prison in 2015 and Richardi took over as the pran of Tocuyito. By 2016, he made the news for his harsh rule, allegedly having ordered the shooting of misbehaving prisoners, according to La Patilla.
One of Richardi’s main sources of income was the “causa,” an extortion charge leveled against all prison residents, which reached $40,000 per month, according to the nongovernmental Venezuelan Prison Observatory (Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones – OVP). The OVP reported that Richardi’s other enterprises inside the prison included drug distribution and sales, arms trafficking, and income from shops.
Richardi, via Instagram, denied the OVP’s claims, saying that the causa was, in fact, a “collaboration” between prisoners to improve prison facilities by pooling money to purchase supplies like cement, sand, and paint.
“We all agreed to restore the space, which we successfully achieved … The ministry [of Penitentiary Services] did not do it, we did it ourselves,” he told InSight Crime.
But Richardi’s power extended beyond the prison, and even beyond Carabobo to other states including Cojedes, Zulia, and Trujillo, according to the anti-corruption group Transparencia Venezuela (Transparency Venezuela). He maintained alliances with other gangs in these regions, jointly participating in criminal economies, including mining and scrap metal smuggling.
And, in 2019, when security forces killed “El Neneno,” one of the most wanted criminals in Cojedes state, they discovered that he lived in a house alongside other criminals, all of whom were directed by Richardi from the prison.
Converting Prison Power Into Celebrity Status
Court documents show that a few years after his trial, Richardi got his sentence reduced, granting him his freedom in 2018. But he chose to remain in Tocuyito and enjoy the comforts of the prison.
Richardi had built up significant criminal power and money while within prison walls. And there were many amenities for prisoners and visitors to enjoy, including restaurants, bars, a number of shops, a basketball court, a baseball field, party spaces, and an illegal financial institution stylized as a Banesco bank. Similar facilities could be found in several pran-run prisons.
A musician who worked with Richardi, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told InSight Crime, “The money makes everything possible.”
Richardi took the pranes’ tendency to flaunt their untouchability to the next level by becoming a public figure, converting his money and power into fame and connections.
Even before his foray into music, Richardi’s prison prowess led him to interact with successful figures outside the world of crime. For example, several Venezuelan professional baseball players participated in the games that Richardi organized at Tocuyito’s internal baseball field.
Richardi began producing music as Rsiete in 2021. He released his first song on YouTube, “ENTRE 4 PAREDES,” (Between 4 Walls) in December 2022. Since then, he has put out nine more songs, ranging in genre from hip hop to pop and reggaeton. He has built a loyal community of fans on social media, with over 120,000 followers on Instagram and over 100,000 followers on TikTok.
Richardi’s lyrics do not shy away from his criminal dealings. While some are more general, glorifying narcoculture by talking about the riches and glamor of being a gangster, others take on greater meaning given his pran status. In one song, he raps “the spots on the street are yours, but I’m the one who allows you to sell.” In another he says, “If you want a war, no one scares me,” a possible allusion to his total control of Tocuyito.
The End of an Era?
While other criminals have used the music industry to hide illicit activities by laundering money through concerts and events, Richardi appears to have used his criminal activity to fund his recordings and inspire his lyrics, all from the protection of a state prison. But this was only possible under the protection of Venezuela’s pranato system, which the government claims it is trying to end.
Just a week before the operation to retake Tocuyito in October 2023, President Nicolás Maduro agreed to hold elections in 2024. The security operations, along with a series of anti-corruption actions in previous months, appeared to many observers as an attempt to bolster support ahead of elections by appearing tough on crime.
Following operations at a half-dozen other prisons, in October 2023 President Maduro announced “the liberation of 100% of the penitentiaries in the country” from pranato rule.
The footage from the takeovers made for good political theater, and the government painted the operation as a victory over the pranes. But, “there are speculations that the operation was done jointly with the pranes,” according to a researcher in citizen security who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. The military interventions were largely peaceful, though the OVP later reported that at least five prisoners had died during the operations.
Since then, there have been questions about the whereabouts of the pranes, many of whom have not been accounted for, including Richardi.
The takeover of Tocuyito does not appear to have entirely derailed Richardi’s music career, and it appears he is still behind bars. He has since released three new songs, which were likely recorded before the taking of Tocuyito. His team made a statement on March 8 following months of speculation about his whereabouts, saying that “he is deprived of liberty, we only know that he is well and his rights have been respected.” However, Richardi’s name does not appear on the list of 2,147 transferred Tocuyito prisoners published by the Prisons Ministry. Richardi did not respond to InSight Crime’s question about the discrepancy.
Doubts about authorities’ abilities to control prisons remain. The transfer of prisoners from the retaken locations has intensified overcrowding and inhumane conditions in the remaining penitentiaries, and crime and corruption have remained prevalent in Venezuela’s prisons after the operations. This makes the reemergence of figures who play a role similar to Richardi’s likely.
Meanwhile, Richardi’s fans await new music from the enigmatic musician, commenting “FreeRsiete” under his posts, sharing their support for his return to the limelight.
Feature Image: Néstor Richardi Sequera Campos, who goes by his artist name “Rsiete” or “Richardi,” poses in his music studio in Tocuyito prison. Source: @realrseven, Instagram.