Leader of notorious Ecuador drug gang who vanished from prison cell is indicted in U.S.
The leader of a violent
Ecuadorian gang
has been indicted in New York City on charges he imported thousands of pounds of cocaine into the United States, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
José Adolfo Macías Villamar — whose nickname is
"Fito"
— has led Los Choneros and its "network of assassins and drug and weapon traffickers" since at least 2020, U.S. Attorney John Durham said in a
news release
.
"The defendant was a ruthless leader and prolific drug trafficker for a violent transnational criminal organization," he said.
The
seven-count indictment
unsealed in Brooklyn charges Villamar and an unidentified co-defendant with international cocaine distribution, conspiracy and weapons counts, including smuggling firearms from the United States.
Macias Villamar is not in U.S. custody, authorities said. In January 2024, he was discovered missing from his prison cell in Quito, Ecuador, where he was serving a 34-year sentence for drug trafficking. A 60-day state of emergency was declared after his escape,
the BBC reported
.
Last year, the
U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions
on the gang Los Choneros as well as Macias Villamar.
Earlier this month, the Ecuadorian government announced that the reward for the capture of Macias Villamar would be increased to $1 million.
Los Choneros is one of 20
criminal gangs
declared "terrorist groups" by Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa, who has led a war on drug gangs blamed for a surge in violent crime in the once-peaceful South American country.
Noboa declared a
state of emergency and deployed troops
in the streets and violence-riddled prisons, resulting in a slight dip in homicide rates in 2024 from the previous year. The president took action last year after
gunmen stormed and opened fire
in a TV studio and bandits threatened random executions of civilians and security forces. A prosecutor investigating the assault was later
shot dead
.
Earlier this year, a leader of one of Ecuador's biggest crime syndicates, Los Lobos, was
arrested at his home
in the coastal city of Portoviejo. The
U.S. last year declared Los Lobos
to be the largest drug trafficking organization in Ecuador.
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