Latin The us editor, BBC Information On-line
MAURICIO TORRES/EPAPolice in Ecuador have recaptured the rustic’s maximum sought after fugitive, drug lord Adolfo MacĂas Villamar.
MacĂas, additionally recognized via the alias “Fito”, is the chief of Los Choneros, a formidable prison gang which is blamed for Ecuador’s transformation from a vacationer haven to a rustic with probably the most easiest homicide charges within the area.
He’s additionally suspected of getting ordered the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.
Police tracked him all the way down to what they described as an underground bunker under a luxurious house within the town of Manta.
A police spokesman mentioned no pictures had been fired within the 10-hour joint operation via police and the army.
Numerous officials first monitored and surrounded the three-storey house within the Monterrey neighbourhood of Manta, at the Ecuadorian coast.
Once they stormed the development, they discovered a sliding entice door, disguised to appear to be a part of the stone ground, from which steel stairs ended in Fito’s underground hideout.
The “bunker” was once fitted out with air-con, a mattress, a fan and a refrigerator.
The home itself boasted a health club with a punching bag and a video games room the place he may play pool and desk soccer.
Fito reportedly post no resistance and was once transferred via air to the port town of Guayaquil, the place a number of of Ecuador’s greatest prisons are positioned.
Photos of his arrival in Guayaquil presentations him dressed in shorts, a T-shirt and turn flops whilst being led via armed safety officials to a parked SUV ahead of being transfered to the Los angeles Roca maximum-security jail.
Mauricio Torres/EPAEcuadorean President Daniel Noboa praised the safety forces for taking pictures Fito and mentioned that he can be extradited to the United States, the place he has been charged with cocaine smuggling.
Fito escaped from Los angeles Regional jail in Guayaquil in January 2024 with the assistance of no less than two guards, prompting international media consideration.
It induced a wave of fatal jail riots, through which guards had been taken hostage and which triggered Noboa to claim a state of emergency.
However Fito was once already infamous previous to his get away. Right through his time in jail – whilst serving a 34-year sentence for homicide and drug trafficking – he rose to the highest of the Los Choneros gang after its earlier chief was once killed.
From in the back of bars, he co-ordinated the group’s actions, which come with drug trafficking and extortion.
He’s additionally suspected of getting ordered the homicide of baby-kisser Fernando Villavicencio, who was once gunned down at a marketing campaign rally simply days ahead of the 2023 election.
Below Fito’s management, Los Choneros solid hyperlinks with Mexico’s robust Sinaloa cartel, an alliance which mavens say has ended in the grotesque ways frequently utilized by Mexican cartels – equivalent to decapitations and mutilations – spreading to Ecuador.
In a while ahead of his jail get away, he additionally gave the impression in a narcocorrido – a slick song video through which his daughter glorifies her father’s prison exploits.
The video, which was once in part recorded within the jail, presentations him caressing a preventing cockerel and freely chatting to fellow inmates.
The crowd chief’s get away in 2024 was once a blow to Noboa’s executive. The Ecuadorian chief had assumed workplace in November 2023 after being elected on a promise to battle the rising energy of the gangs.
On Wednesday, Noboa mentioned that the drug lord’s seize was once evidence his means – which incorporates bringing in regulations giving him sweeping powers to claim an “armed interior war”, and which permits police to habits searches with out a warrant – was once running.
“Extra [drug lords] will fall, we can regain [control of] the rustic,” he posted on X.
