In the first ten days of the “internal armed conflict” declared by the Ecuadorian government against organized crime gangs, a total of 2,369 people were arrested, 158 of them for terrorism, according to a government report released Friday.
On Jan. 9, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” in response to a wave of attacks and violence attributed to organized crime that began three days earlier with the escape from prison of a prominent gang leader known as Fito.
Noboa’s declaration legally transformed 22 organized crime gangs into “terrorist groups” and “belligerent non-state actors,” allowing him to use the country’s armed forces, not just the police, to fight them.
Between Jan. 9 and 19, Ecuadorian authorities claim to have killed five alleged gang members and seized 885 firearms, 1,069 knives, 64 arms suppliers, nearly 26,000 bullets and 4,639 explosives, according to the report.Ecuadorian law enforcement also seized more than 6.3 tons of drugs and more than $18,500 in cash.
According to the government, there were thirteen attacks on public and private infrastructure and twelve attacks on police facilities in those ten days.
Two policemen were killed and eleven others were kidnapped and later released.
On Wednesday, after the situation had calmed down and the military was in charge of security, prosecutor César Suárez was assassinated in Guayaquil. He was in charge of investigating the armed raid on the TC television station on Jan. 9, which resulted in the arrest of 11 adults ad two minors who allegedly belong to the Los Tiguerones criminal gang.
The courts have ordered the preventive detention of two people allegedly involved in the murder of prosecutor Suárez.
The mayhem began as Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa prepared to implement an “Iron Fist” plan to regain control of the country’s penal system, where more than 450 prisoners have been killed since 2020 in a series of prison massacres between rival groups who run the prisons.
After the escape of Fito on Jan. 7, whose real name is José Adolfo Macías, leader of “Los Choneros,” prison riots in at least seven prisons took 200 prison guards hostage for nearly a week, and about 90 prisoners escaped, including another ringleader, Fabricio Colón Pico of “Los Lobos,” and violence spilled into the streets with the kidnapping and murder of police officers, explosions, and burned vehicles.
In recent years, gang and drug-related violence in Ecuador has grown exponentially, reaching about 45 intentional homicides per 100,000 people in 2023, and even a presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, was assassinated in August 2023 during the elections that brought Noboa to power.
By Ch Fahad Khan Janda