'Fito', the dangerous criminal who escaped from prison and caused chaos in Ecuador

Bearded, lips pursed, gaze fixed and the legend on his face “WANTED”. Adolfo Macías, alias Fito, is now the most dangerous fugitive in Ecuador after his escape from prison, from where he commanded the main criminal gang in a country mired in violence.

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Little else is known about the leader of 'Los Choneros' other than his humble past as a taxi driver, in addition to his ability to break the law that leads him to be classified by the government as a “criminal with extremely dangerous characteristics”.

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The alarms about his unknown whereabouts went off on Sunday, when uniformed officers in an operation noticed his absence. Behind him he had left a prison adorned with images that exalt his own figure, weapons, dollars and lions.

The public force activated a plan to find the head of a drug gang that emerged in the 1990s in the coastal province of Manabí (southwest), strategic for drug trafficking to the United States and Europe.

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The government believes that he could have escaped “hours before” the police intervention in the Guayaquil Regional Prison (southwest), where he was considered the boss.

Videos show the celebrations that took place inside the prison with musicians and pyrotechnics. She even recorded in a courtyard a video clip of a narcocorrido in her honor, performed by a mariachi and her daughter, who introduces herself as 'Queen Michelle'.

In the recording he appears greeting, laughing and caressing a fighting rooster.

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'Fito' exercised “important internal control of the penitentiary center”noted the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in a 2022 report made after a meeting with the boss.

The organization added that Macías and Junior Roldán, another leader of 'Los Choneros' murdered last year in Colombia, had “differential and preferential treatment by the” prison authorities.

Rise and fragmentation

In Fito's world the saying applies: a dead king is a king. His rise to the top of the band, made up of about 8,000 people, occurred due to the successive deaths of his predecessors..

He assumed command of the organization in 2020, after the deaths of his friends Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias Rasquiña, and Junior Roldán, JR.

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The new boss graduated as a lawyer in prison, where he was serving a 34-year sentence for the crimes of weapons possession, drug trafficking, organized crime and murder.

His rise to the criminal leadership was accompanied by the fragmentation of the gang, which until Rasquiña's death had united a good part of smaller organizations.

According to Insight Crime, The latest changes in the leadership of 'Los Choneros' “have motivated internal struggles in the group and its subgroups.” Bands like 'Tiguerones' and 'Chone Killers' broke away and declared war on them.

The study center points out that 'Los Choneros' “have progressively lost power to an alliance led by the Lobos”, whose leader in Quito also escaped from a prison in Riobamba (south) on Tuesday.

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'Los Choneros' were first dedicated to traditional crime with assaults on the high seas, they achieved links with Colombian and then Mexican drug traffickers. They currently have links with the Sinaloa cartels, the Gulf Clan (the largest cocaine exporter in the world) and Balkan organizations.according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.

A virtual army

On social networks, 'Los Choneros' present themselves as Robin Hood-style do-gooders and produce their own video clips that praise drug trafficking. They threaten journalists and issue warnings to other bands with urban rhythms.

“Active, Choneros, here we are lions. With Uncle Fito as supposed, controlling the neighborhood here we are bosses”they say in one of their many songs.

For the last time seen obese, bearded and with unkempt hair, the feared leader went from starring in viral rap songs in the world of crime to being once again on the cover of the media after the assassination of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who accused him of having threatened him. a week before being shot in August by a Colombian hitman.

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The justice system has not convicted Fito for that crime, but the government of then-president Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023) ordered his transfer to a maximum security prison, in a spectacular operation by public forces that sparked protests by inmates.

'Fito' returned shortly after to his fiefdom of the Guayaquil Regional Prison through legal resources.

Now again his photograph with the legend “WANTED” He wanders around Ecuador, which is bleeding amid clashes that broke out after his escape.

In 2013 he had already escaped, but his journey lasted just three months.

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A security crisis

The recent onslaught of drug-related violence leaves at least ten dead in Ecuador, whose president declared an “internal armed conflict” and sent the military to the streets after armed men stormed a television channel live.

There were “eight people killed” in attacks in the port of Guayaquil (southwest), a local police chief said at a press conference. The security force also indicated on social network X that two agents were “vilely murdered by armed criminals” in the nearby town of Nobol..

(Also read: 'Don't shoot, please': Ecuadorian channel staff intervened by hooded men)

The country's president, Daniel Noboa, announced earlier in the press and prison riots.

For two days now, Ecuador has been experiencing days of terror following the escape of Macías, who was being held in a prison in Guayaquil.

In response to 'Fito's escape, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa on Monday implemented a state of emergency throughout the country, including prisons, and a six-hour curfew from 11 p.m.

This Tuesday, Fabricio Colón Pico, one of the bosses of Los Lobos, also escaped this Tuesday, arrested on Friday accused of kidnapping and planning the murder of the attorney general.

(Also: Ecuador: Noboa decrees a state of emergency after riots and escape of criminal leader)

In the midst of the outbreak that was felt in several cities like Quito, Seven police officers were kidnapped, there were explosions against a police station and in front of the home of the president of the Supreme Court of Justice and vehicles were set on fire. Three of the uniformed men “have been released and placed in safe custody,” the police reported by X.

In prisons in five locations there are 139 guards and administrative officials held by prisoners, said the agency in charge of prisons (SNAI).

AFP