A tourist takes a photo of the presidential palace of Carondelet with the Ecuadorian flag hoisted halfway up in honor of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito on August 12, 2023. (Photo by Martin BERNETTI / AFP)
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — Ecuador on Saturday transferred a powerful gang leader, accused of threatening a presidential candidate before his assassination, to a maximum security prison via a massive military and police operation, officials said.
At dawn, some 4,000 heavily armed officers entered Prison 8 in Guayaquil, southwestern Ecuador, where the leader of the powerful criminal group Los Choneros, Jose Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito” was being held. .
Footage shared by security forces showed a bearded man in his underwear with his hands on his head in some snaps and lying on the ground with his arms bound in others.
Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso reported on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, that ‘Fito’ had been transferred to La Roca, a 150-person maximum security prison that is part of the same large prison complex. where he was already.
The gang leader controlled at least one cellblock in the prison from which he was expelled.
Ecuador is under a state of emergency following the shock assassination of journalist and anti-corruption activist Fernando Villavicencio on Wednesday August 9.
Lasso blamed the murder on organized crime, and Villavicencio complained that he had received death threats from Macias.
A week before the 59-year-old was killed, he said ‘Fito’ was threatening him.
Villavicencio told a local show that an “emissary” of the gang leader contacted him and warned him “that if I keep… mentioning Los Choneros, they’re going to bust me.”
On Saturday August 12, his party announced that his running mate, Andrea Gonzalez, would take his place in the August 20 election.
Gonzalez, 36, is a conservationist who has fought for the protection of oceans, forests and mangroves, among other things.
Villavicencio has drawn the ire of gangs and drug traffickers for his investigations.
Six Colombians were arrested in his murder, while a seventh was killed in a shootout with his bodyguards. Authorities did not say who hired and paid the hitmen.
“Fito” had been sentenced to 34 years in prison for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
Prisons have become the center of drug trafficking operations in Ecuador.
More than 430 inmates have died violently since 2021, dozens of them dismembered and cremated amid disputes between rival gangs.
The global community has condemned Villavicencio’s murder, including the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.
On Saturday, Pope Francis dismissed the violence in Ecuador in a message to the Archbishop of Quito, Alfredo Espinoza.
The pope condemned “with all his might” the “suffering caused by unjustifiable violence”.
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