The immediate spark for last week's chaos was the escape on Sunday 7 January of Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, from his cell in a prison complex in Guayaquil, the country's largest city and its chief port.
Macías is the leader of Los Choneros, one of Ecuador's most powerful criminal gangs, which is believed to have links to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. He was serving a 34-year sentence, and previously escaped for several weeks in 2013.
He was said to have been tipped off shortly before he was due to be transferred to a maximum-security facility. Macías was living in a spacious cell decorated with murals and had been shown in a music video, for The Lion's Ballad, relaxing in the prison courtyard and petting a fighting cockerel.
Last Tuesday, President Daniel Noboa decreed 22 gangs were now classified as terrorist groups.
How strong are gangs in Ecuador?
This story is from the January 19, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the January 19, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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