Ecuador Is Now Under Full Control Of A Local Gang Tied To The Sinaloa Cartel
The president just declared a national emergency after the escape of the ‘El Chapo’ of Ecuador.
At least a dozen men wearing balaclavas, hoodies and armed with shotguns, machetes and explosives kidnapped an entire television studio in Ecuador during a live broadcast on Tuesday.
In two separate clips from the scene, several men are seen aiming their arms at point blank to one of the TV anchors while he tells someone behind the camera to ask the police to leave. It is still unknown what the armed men were demanding or why they took over the station.
“Please ask the police to leave, please,” the TV anchor for Televisora TC, the main news station in Ecuador, begs, while one of the armed men puts what looks like an explosive on the front pocket of his suit.
On a second video a group of the station’s production staff is seen kneeled down in the middle of the set while the armed men beat them with their firearms. The station never stopped broadcasting.
In a separate video a group of heavily armed men are seen holding a police officer at gunpoint while he remains kneeling only to kill him seconds after.
On Tuesday morning a new video surfaced showing a shocking explosion in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s capital, where allegedly several police officers were killed.
Ecuador president, Daniel Noboa declared a national emergency state on Monday night and launched Ecuador’s military to the streets after a notorious cartel leader escaped from a Maximum security prison.
The state of emergency, Noboa said in a video on Instagram, would give members of the military “all the political and legal support” they need to carry out their duties in a battle against what he described as “narcoterrorists”.
“We will not negotiate with terrorists nor rest until we return peace to all Ecuadorans,” Noboa said.
On Sunday, José Adolfo Macías, known as Fito, the leader of the powerful Los Choneros gang -the biggest ally of the Sinaloa Cartel in Ecuador-, was found missing by police conducting an inspection inside the prison he was being held at.
Fito is believed to have escaped just hours before police arrived, according to presidency spokesperson Roberto Izurieta. He was allegedly tipped off by the same prison guards securing him.
After Fito’s escape, unrest broke out at penitentiaries in six of Ecuador’s 24 provinces on Monday, according to prison authorities, with guards taken hostage at some of the facilities.
“The full force of the state is being deployed to find this extremely dangerous individual,” Izurieta told domestic television on Monday night.
Fito had been serving a 34-year sentence for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder since 2011.
This is his second prison escape – the last was in 2013 when he was recaptured after three months.
Los Choneros gang has been scaling its ties to the Sinaloa Cartel as their main cocaine source in South America.
Authorities originally identified the group as an armed branch of a Colombian drug cartel, with control over Pacific maritime trafficking routes to Mexico and the US. However, the arrest of gang leaders through the past decade had led the gang to look for new alliances.
Since then, the Choneros have been part of a brutal gang war against their enemies, the Lobos, the Tiguerones, and the Chone Killers that have taken Ecuador to almost-unprecedented levels of violence.
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