Venezuelan police broke into a prison in the north of Venezuela on Wednesday in a government anti-gang mission that sought to regain control of the jail.

Footage shared by the government showed police deployed inside the cells and a display of seized weapons in the National Penitentiary Centre of Valencia, known as Tocuyito prison.

The Minister of Security, Justice and Peace, Remigio Ceballos, said the Tocuyito prison was the most crowded penitentiary centre in the country, with more than 2,000 inmates. Inmates’ relatives were gathered outside the prison to seek information about their loved ones’ possible moves to other facilities.

The mission took place less than a month after another anti-gang operation in the Tocoron prison, where the Venezuelan government said it had dismantled the dangerous criminal gang known as Tren de Aragua.