Los Choneros Gang Leader "Fito" Transferred to Maximum Security Prison in Ecuador

Cartel Gang Links

Villavicencio said several times over the last few weeks, in the context of the electoral campaign, that Ecuador “is subject to the power of criminal structures and drug traffickers led by the Sinaloa Cartel and by Jalisco Nueva Generación.” Ecuadorians seem to take it for granted that talking about the Sinaloa Cartel is talking about “Los Choneros” and their allies “Las Águilas” and “Los Fatales”; and that speaking of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) is to speak of a group of five gangs (“Los Tiguerones”, “Los Lobos”, “Los Lagartos”, “Los CH Killers” and “ALKQN”) that call themselves “New Generation Poster”.

Villavicencio even made direct references to Mexico. On August 2, in an interview with journalist Janeth Hinostroza, Villavicencio said: “If we don’t attack the political mafia, we will never have a homeland, because what is going to happen? Mr. López Obrador, president of Mexico, gets off his motorized caravan, walks two blocks, and hugs the mother of ‘Chapo’ Guzmán. That is the model of narco politics that Ecuador is about to experience”.

In the trial against Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, held in a federal court in New York in 2019, a former associate of the Mexican drug lord, who ended up testifying against him, the Colombian Jorge Cifuentes Villa, revealed that the incursion of the Sinaloa Cartel in Ecuador dates back to 2008, when it itself opened a maritime route from the Ecuadorian coast to Mexico to transport tons of cocaine.

According to Colombian police intelligence sources, dozens of envoys from the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels have traveled to Ecuador in recent years to consolidate their relations with the gangs in that country and open new routes to Europe.

According to the sources, the Mexican cartels have expanded their influence in Ecuador in alliance with the Colombian gangs with which they have worked for several years and with which they finance the production and trafficking of cocaine.

Last February, for example, the Colombian police captured in the department of Nariño, on the border with Ecuador, the Ecuadorian drug lord Wilder Emilio Sánchez Farfán, the “Gato Farfán”, whom the United States authorities considered the main link between “Los Choneros.”

A few days before being assassinated, Villavicencio reiterated that one of his first actions as president, if he were to win the elections scheduled for next Sunday, August 20, would be to build a “high security” prison in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the that “Fito”, other drug lords, murderers, and white-collar criminals would be isolated. “They are not going to have conjugal visits,” he said.

These types of assertions must have echoed in the main prisons of Ecuador, where “Fito” and the heads of other rival gangs of “Los Choneros”, such as “Los Tiguerones” and “Los Lobos”, have built their bunkers by co-opting the prison authorities, who allow them the entry of weapons, furniture, electrical appliances and all kinds of comforts.

On July 25, for example, “Fito” broadcast a video from the Guayaquil prison, in which he appears seated at a large table, flanked by five armed lieutenants, who are standing, and in which he announces that for ” moral obligation” will reach a peace agreement with other gangs, such as “Los Lobos” and “Los Tiguerones” to end “vaccinations (security charges), kidnappings and extortions and violent deaths”.

In the end, he says that as a gesture of “good faith” he voluntarily surrenders his weapons, after which his men place three pistols and a rifle on the table. No authority has explained why “Fito” can record a promotional video from prison, have weapons there and live in a prison with all kinds of comforts and guarded by his men.

FBI Joins Investigation

The president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, announced that the United States authorities accepted his request to collaborate in the investigation of the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.