Latest news with #LosChoneros
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
At least 17 killed after gunmen storm small-town bar in Ecuador
Gunmen in Ecuador have killed at least 17 people, including a child, in an attack on a bar, the latest incident to underscore the South American nation's challenges with rising violent crime. The country's attorney general said on Monday that more than 40 pieces of ballistic evidence were recovered from the bar in the small town of El Empalme, located about 160 kilometres [100 miles] north of the city of Guayaquil in the coastal province of Guayas. Images shared by Ecuadorian media show bodies and pools of blood across the floor of the bar. Ecuador has reeled from a surge in violent crime over the last several years, which experts say is largely driven by criminal groups sparring over territory and lucrative drug trafficking routes. Police said that groups of gunmen in two trucks opened fire on the bar with pistols and rifles on Sunday night in an attack that also injured at least 11 people, with other reports putting the number as high as 14. One minor hit in the attack ran more than a kilometre before collapsing in the street and dying from his wounds. The news agency AFP reported that the trucks full of men also shot and killed two more people at a different location, and that the men shouted 'Active Wolves!' during the attack on the bar. El Empalme police chief Oscar Valencia said the term was a possible reference to the criminal group Los Lobos, which competes with another group, Los Choneros, for control of drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and illegal mining operations. Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa has pushed for expanded powers for the executive and state security forces in the name of addressing crime, measures that have mostly won over public support despite concerns over potential abuses.
First Post
a day ago
- First Post
Ecuador Extradites Los Choneros Leader "Fito" to US on Drug Charges Firstpost America
Ecuador Extradites Los Choneros Leader "Fito" to US on Drug Charges | Firstpost America | N18G Ecuador Extradites Los Choneros Leader "Fito" to US on Drug Charges | Firstpost America | N18G Ecuador has extradited top gang leader José Adolfo Macías, alias "Fito", to the United States, where he faces federal charges including drug trafficking and firearms possession. Fito, head of the Los Choneros gang, escaped from prison in 2024, triggering a national emergency and violent unrest. He was captured in June, hiding in a bunker beneath a mansion in Manabí province. US authorities accuse him of trafficking multiple tonnes of cocaine. He arrived in New York on Sunday and is expected to plead not guilty in Brooklyn federal court. Fito is the first Ecuadorian extradited to the US on such charges. Watch the video to know more. See More
New Straits Times
7 days ago
- New Straits Times
Ecuador's 'Fito': From taxi driver to drug lord to an American jail
FORMER mechanic and taxi driver Adolfo Macias rose from a life of petty crime to the top of Ecuador's drug gang hierarchy, using extreme violence to try and submit an entire country to his will. His reign of terror has seemingly come to an end, however, as the 45-year-old head of Ecuador's "Los Choneros" gang pleaded "not guilty" to drug and weapons charges in a New York court Monday. In January 2024, Macias – alias "Fito" – made international headlines when he escaped from a prison in Ecuador's port city of Guayaquil – a hub for drug exports. He had been serving a 34-year sentence for weapons possession, narcotics trafficking, organised crime and murder. Jail did little to check Macias's ambitions: he earned his law degree behind bars and continued pulling the strings of the criminal underworld. Videos have emerged of him holding wild prison parties, some with fireworks. In one recording, a mariachi band and the drug lord's daughter perform a narco-glorifying ballad in the prison yard while he laughingly strokes a fighting cock. Fito exercised "significant internal control over the prison," the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) noted in a 2022 report following a meeting with the gang leader. His escape prompted the government to deploy the military, to the anger of Los Choneros, which unleashed a wave of violence in response. The gang detonated car bombs, held prison guards hostage and stormed a television station during a live broadcast in several days of running battles that prompted President Daniel Noboa to declare a "state of internal armed conflict." In June this year, a massive military and police operation dragged a bedraggled Fito from a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, where he was born. No shots were fired, and the government was quick to release photos of the overweight, dishevelled Macias appearing rather less dangerous than his deadly reputation. On Sunday, he was put on a New York-bound plane in Guayaquil wearing shorts, a bulletproof vest and helmet, and on Monday he appeared in court. He was smiling. Macias became leader of Los Choneros in 2020, at a time when it was transitioning away from petty crime and establishing links with the big-league Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. "The defendant served for years as the principal leader of Los Choneros, a notoriously violent transnational criminal organization, and was a ruthless and infamous drug and firearms trafficker," US attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement ahead of Monday's hearing. "The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control," he added. Macias has also been linked to the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio at a political rally in 2023. Villavicencio had accused Los Choneros of threatening his life. The gang is one of dozens blamed for bringing bloodshed to Ecuador, once one of the world's safest nations, but now one of its deadliest. The country is wedged between the world's top two cocaine exporters – Colombia and Peru – and more than 70 percent of all worldwide production now passes through Ecuador's ports, according to government data. Under Macias's leadership, Los Choneros "have leveraged their connections and sway... to become a key link in the transnational cocaine supply chain," according to an analysis by the InSight Crime think-tank. It said the gang oversees the arrival of cocaine shipments from Colombia and uses a fleet of speedboats to send it on to Central America and Mexico, from where it is shipped to consumer markets in North America and Europe. "With or without Fito, Ecuador will continue to be a top cocaine transit nation," said the NGO. Macias had also escaped prison in 2013, but managed to elude authorities for only three months at the time. On Sunday, he became the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since the measure was written into law last year, after a referendum in which Noboa sought the approval of measures to boost his war on criminal gangs.
21-07-2025
Ecuadorian drug lord 'Fito' pleads not guilty after being extradited to New York
The head of a violent Ecuadorian gang accused of smuggling cocaine and firearms between South America and the U.S. pleaded not guilty to drug and gun charges Monday in New York. José Adolfo Macías Villamar, whose nickname is 'Fito,' appeared in federal court in Brooklyn a day after Ecuador extradited him to the U.S. A judge ordered him detained until trial and set his next court date for Sept. 19. U.S. prosecutors accuse Macías of leading the vicious Los Choneros gang that used hitmen, bribes and military weapons, including machine guns and grenades. The hitmen, or sicarios, murdered, tortured and kidnapped people in Ecuador as the gang committed violence against law enforcement, politicians, attorneys, prosecutors and civilians, authorities said. Los Choneros also worked with Mexican drug cartels to ship cocaine from Colombian suppliers through Ecuador and Central America to the U.S., and shipped firearms from the U.S. to South America, prosecutors said. 'Macías Villamar poses an extraordinary danger to the community,' U.S. prosecutors wrote in a request that Macías be detained without bail until trial. 'The Court should enter a permanent order of detention, as no condition or combination of conditions can assure the safety of the community or assure Macías Villamar's appearance at trial.' Macías' lawyer, Alexei Schacht, who entered the not guilty pleas on Macías' behalf, did not immediately return phone and email messages Monday. Macías escaped from a prison in Ecuador in January 2024 and wasn't caught until last month, when he was found in an underground bunker at a relative's mansion in the port city of Manta. He was serving a 34-year sentence for drug trafficking, organized crime and murder when he escaped. He also fled from a maximum-security prison in February 2013 but was recaptured a few weeks later. Los Choneros emerged in the 1990s and Macías has been its leader since 2020, authorities said. Macías cultivated a cult status among fellow gang members and the public in his home country. While behind bars in 2023, he released a video addressed to 'the Ecuadorian people' while flanked by armed men. He also threw parties in prison, where he had access to everything from liquor to roosters for cockfighting matches. A federal grand jury in New York City indicted him on seven charges in April and returned an updated indictment in late June. The charges include international cocaine distribution conspiracy, use of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking and straw purchasing of firearms conspiracy. If convicted, he could face 20 years to life in prison. "The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control,' Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
New York Post
21-07-2025
- New York Post
Violent drug kingpin extradited to NYC after his prison break sparked riots, chaos in Ecuador
An Ecuadorean gang leader who twice escaped from Central American prisons is now locked up in the US and facing a federal drug and gun trafficking indictment, prosecutors said Monday. Jose Adolfo 'Fito' Macias Villamar, 45, the notorious leader of the violent 'Los Choneros' gang, held so much clout in his native country that the Ecuadorean government had to declare a state of emergency last year after his most recent escape sparked nationwide riots and violence. But Macias Villamar was recaptured and extradited to the US over the weekend and is now awaiting on a seven-count indictment in the Eastern District of New York, prosecutors said. Advertisement 3 Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as 'Frito,' is facing a US indictment for running the 'Los Choneros' gang. via REUTERS 'José 'Fito' Macias thought he could traffic poison into our country, smuggle American weapons back to his killers, and further his criminal enterprise using chaos and bloodshed,' Robert Murphy, acting administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement. 'He was wrong. 'Today, the kingpin of Los Choneros faces justice on U.S. soil for his crimes,' Murphy said. Advertisement Los Choneros is 'the most violent and powerful transnational criminal organization in Ecuador,' the US Attorneys Office said in a press release. The gang was behind the assassinations of at lease one prominent political leader in Ecuador in 2023, and was part of a rival gang war behind bars that saw more than 115 people killed in 2021. 3 Federal prosecutors in New York said Jose Adolfo 'Fito' Macias Villamar ran the dangerous 'Los Choneros' gang. REUTERS Macias Villamar oversaw the gang's operations from Central America, including from inside Ecuadorean prison cells, according to the indictment. Advertisement Under his watch, Los Choneros operatives stocked up on weapons in the US — including AK 47s, assault rifles and hand grenades — between 2020 and 2025, sneaking the weapons into Ecuador, where they helped gangbangers control the gun and international drug trade. In 2011, Macias Villamar was jailed in Ecuador, but managed to escape — and did so again in January 2024, when his prison break sparked nationwide unrest and violence. Recaptured by Ecuadorean authorities, he was extradited over the weekend and is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment later on Monday, prosecutors said. 3 'Los Choneros' gang boss Jose Adolfo 'Fito' Macias Villamar twice escaped from prisons in Ecuador. SNAI/AFP via Getty Images Advertisement 'The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control,' Eastern District US Attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement. 'This case demonstrates our Office's commitment to identifying and targeting the leadership of such organizations, wherever they may be located, and bringing them to face justice here in the United States,' Nocella added.
