Ecuador captures escaped drug lord who threatened the prosecutor

A criminal leader accused of threatening to kill the attorney general of Ecuador, Diana Salazar, He was captured three months after his escape in the midst of a violent drug attack in the country, authorities reported. In the afternoon, “two dismembered bodies” were found in the north of Quito, the prosecutor’s office reported in a statement.

The entity “investigates what happened because it is presumed to be related” to “intelligence reports on possible attacks on the life” of Salazar, he added.

The Ecuadorian Colón Pico was arrested along with four peopleamong them two inmates who escaped from the same prison and their sister, in a sector of the small town of Puerto Quito, 160 km northwest of the capital.

“Today we have three recaptures. We all know what Colón Pico means, it became a symbol” within organized crimehe expressed in a joint press conference the Minister of the Interior, Mónica Palencia, key piece of the government in its war against drug gangs.

“Received by bullet”

Alias ​​Captain Picoone of the bosses of the Los Lobos group and considered a “high value target” by authorities, escaped from a prison in Riobamba, in the central Andean region, on January 9 in the midst of a strong drug attack that left twenty people dead. The onslaught led President Daniel Noboa to declare a state of emergency, which lasted 90 days and allowed him to mobilize the military to the streets.

“Thank you Ecuador for your broad support for a security policy and fight against corruption that“It is giving results like today’s capture of Colón Pico,” Noboa wrote on the X social network.

The authorities suspect that Los Lobos participated in the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencioshot last August by Colombian hitmen while leaving a campaign rally in Quito.

Photographs of the capture show Pico with dyed blonde hair, handcuffed and surrounded by uniformed men. During the capture, The uniformed men “were received with bullets” when they were trying to enter a cocoa farm where the fugitive was, indicated the police commander, General César Zapata.

Where is Fito?

Pico had been arrested on January 5 accused of the crime of kidnapping (the son of a drug trafficker) and of hatching a plan to murder Salazar, which was not executed.

After the coup against Los Lobos, The authorities are still looking for the leader of Los Chonerosone of the largest gangs in the country, escaped from a prison in the port of Guayaquil (southwest). Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito”had been imprisoned since 2011, sentenced to 34 years in prison for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.

The absence of Fito, who has not been recaptured, was detected during an inspection by public forces at the penitentiary on January 7.

“We are not going to rest until we have all these terrorists who are causing problems behind bars”Zapata said.

The escape of the leader of Los Choneros unleashed several days of terror in Ecuador, before which Noboa declared an internal armed conflict and ordered the Armed Forces subdue around twenty groups considered “terrorists” and “belligerents”.

In those days of January, the gangs attacked with violence in response to the government’s exceptional measures, with riots in prisons, attacks against the press, detonations of car bombs and the temporary retention of some 200 prison guards and police inside the prisons.

The priority: safety

Pico’s recapture occurred after Sunday’s referendum, in which the government achieved support to strengthen its war against organized crime with the extradition of Ecuadorians to other countries and the increase in penalties for crimes such as terrorism, drug trafficking and hitmen.

“The people spoke to us clearly and concisely, and told us that their priority is security, and We are working on it”said Minister Palencia.

According to the head of the portfolio, security has improved despite the fact that 92 homicides were recorded in the last week: two mayors were murdered between Wednesday and Friday in a mining area, where they operate Los Lobos, and the director of a prison also died in an attack on Sunday.

In the first week of January there were about 200 deaths. Ecuador is in the middle of Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers, and has become a strategic point for drug trafficking.

The violence skyrocketed homicides to a record 43 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023. The prisons, controlled since January by the military, have been the scene of bloody clashes between gangs in which more than 460 prisoners have died since 2021.