300 Carlos (also known as “Infierno Grande” or “La Fábrica”) was a Uruguayan clandestine torture and detention centre which operated in a warehouse belonging to the Uruguayan Army’s Materials and Arms Service situated at Avenue de las Instrucciones no.1925 in Montevideo.

The property is attached to the Army’s Thirteenth Infantry Battalion, which already operated as a clandestine torture and detention centre prior to the coup d’état in 1973. These sites formed part of a large military complex of different services that operated in close vicinity including the Army’s Service Corps, the Fifth Infantry Battalion, and the First Communications Brigade.

The warehouse, which continues to exist within the military premises with slight modifications, is built of cement, with a roof which measures approximately 40 metres long, around 15 metres wide and six metres high.

The people who had been abducted were brought onto the military premises in vehicles and their faces were covered so that they would not recognise where they were going. They entered the warehouse, where they would remain standing, sat down or on the floor for several days. The survivors recount that people were tortured for twenty four hours a day in the warehouse, where they were hit, hanged and subjected to sexual violence and electric shocks from the “picana eléctrica” (electric prod). For the interrogations, the victims were taken upstairs via a narrow, wooden staircase which led to the dedicated torture and interrogation room.

The operations at 300 Carlos took place from November 1975 to the beginning of 1977. The clandestine torture and detention centre was managed by the Organismo Coordinador de Operaciones Antisubversivas (Coordinating Organism for Antisubversive Operations, OCOA), which was created by the Army’s General Command in 1971 with the objective of coordinating the “fight against subversion”. This organism came under the authority of the Army’s First Division. In 1975, a repressive operation called “Operation Morgan” was unleashed, leading to mass detentions of sympathisers and militants of the Partido Comunista del Uruguay (Uruguayan Communist Party). 300 Carlos was the centre of Operation Morgan’s repression, as well as the persecution of militants belonging to the Partido por la Victoria del Pueblo (Party for the Victory of the People).

The OCOA and the Servicio de Información de Defensa (Defence Information Service, SID) also used other clandestine centres, either during the months prior to, or in parallel with, the first “300 Carlos” operations. In particular, a secret prison known as “300 Carlos R” or “Infierno chico” operated in a house in front of the coastal avenue known as “La Rambla” in the upmarket neighbourhood of Punta Gorda in Montevideo. Another house known as “Cárcel del Pueblo” had a similar function. It had previously been used by the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional - Tupamaros (National Liberation Movement, MLN-T) before it was confiscated and taken over by the Ministry of Defence in 1972.

Research into Operation Condor has identified that 49 victims of the repressive transnational operation passed through 300 Carlos, including at least eight disappeared persons.

In 2005, the remains of the notary Fernando Miranda- who was captured in November 1975- were found by the forensic anthropology investigation group from Uruguay’s University of the Republic in one of the main burial sites of the Thirteenth Infantry Battalion. In 2019, the remains of Eduardo Bleier were found and identified at the same site. Both Fernando and Eduardo were victims of Operation Morgan.

Several investigations indicate that the remains of other captured and disappeared individuals may also be found in the Thirteenth Battalion’s premises including those of Nebio Melo Cuesta, Amelia Sanjurjo, Julio Correa Rodríguez, Oscar Tassino, Oscar Baliñas, Luis Eduardo González and the Argentine national María Claudia García de Gelmán, who was captured while pregnant in Buenos Aires and secretly transferred by the Defence Information Service in 1976.

The operations at “300 Carlos” came to a closure at the beginning of 1977. The surviving captives were transferred to another secret prison known as “La Tablada Nacional”, where the OCOA’s repressive plans were also carried out.

On 27th June 2016, a plaque was put up in memory of the victims. Since 2018, the municipal government of Montevideo’s Museum of Memory (Museo de la Memoria, MUME) has been organising guided tours in coordination with the Ministry of Defence. On 23rd October 2019, the place was declared a site of memory according to law No. 19.641.