“Internal Armed Conflict” Unleashed in Ecuador Against Drug Cartels

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Issue Jan 10-16 2024: A crisis exploded in Ecuador after José Adolfo Macías Villamar, known as “Fito,” escaped from prison on January 8, 2024. Macías, the leader the country’s largest drug gang, Los Choneros, had carried on control of his criminal empire for 12 years from his jail cell in the port city of Guayaquil. In response to Macías’ escape, and to counter increased gang activities both in and outside of Ecuador’s beleaguered prison system, President Daniel Noboa moved to crackdown on criminal organizations, to which the gangs responded with a vicious binge of attacks on the country’s prisons, a TV station, and a university campus, prompting the government to deploy more than 22,400 soldiers to suppress the violence. In Guayaquil and Quito, residents felt trapped in their homes and called the streets “no man’s land.” Analysts struggled to make sense of the situation and place it in the larger Latin American context.

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