On Wednesday, the US Treasury Department announced that the US imposed sanctions on Ecuador's criminal group Los Choneros and its leader, Jose Adolfo Macias.
President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador declared a 60-day state of emergency and launched a military operation on gangs last month in response to escalating violence in the country.
US Sanctions Los Choneros Gang, Leader
Members of the Ecuadorean Armed Forces stand guard outside the Zonal Penitentiary No. 8 as inmates protest, demanding the return to this prison of the leader of the "Los Choneros" gang, alias Fito, in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on August 14, 2023. Alias Fito was transferred on Saturday, August 12 to La Roca, a maximum-security prison within the same penitentiary complex.
The authorities accused Los Choneros of controlling Ecuador's overcrowded and crime-plagued jails and have linked the group to drug trafficking, extortion, and murder.
The US move freezes any assets of the group and its leader and generally prohibits Americans from doing business with them. However, it is unclear how many US assets the gang has.
Brian Nelson, secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said, "Drug trafficking gangs such as Los Choneros, many with ties to powerful drug cartels in Mexico, threaten the lives and livelihoods of communities in Ecuador and throughout the region."
He continued that they stand in support of Ecuador in its fight to combat drug trafficking, curb the proliferation of prison gangs and prison violence, and take back its streets.
According to the Treasury, Los Choneros have been active in drug trafficking in the country since the 1990s and accused the group of being a major contributor to the rising levels of violence in Ecuador since 2020.
Macias has been on the run since disappearing from an Ecuadorean jail last month, where he was serving a 34-year sentence for crimes including drug trafficking and murder.
Noboa issued a two-month state of emergency shortly after Macias, also known as Fito, went missing.
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Armed Attack at Ecuadorian TV Station
A group of armed and masked men in Ecuador carried out an audacious attack on a television station during a live broadcast, exposing the nation's escalating violence following an alleged recent jailbreak.
Thousands of people watched live on TC Television on Tuesday as the men threatened presenters and studio hands with firearms and explosives that appeared to be sticks of dynamite. Shot-like noises could be heard, along with cries of agony.
Ecuador's attorney general's office said on Tuesday that the police neutralized the scene and arrested 13 people and that they could spend up to 13 years in prison if found guilty of terrorism.
According to AP News, the massacre that took place in February 2021 at the Literol Penitentiary, the nation's most violent prison, marked the beginning of the current wave of violence. It resulted in at least 79 fatalities and set off a string of horrifying incidents in Ecuadorian prisons.
The biggest prison massacre in American history occurred in September of the same year when 116 prisoners were killed in a single prison, several of them by beheading. Over 450 people have been killed in 18 jail conflicts.
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