Ecuador publishes list of ‘military objectives’

(Quito) The Ecuadorian government published Friday the names of the country’s eleven most wanted criminals, now designated as “military targets”, with the leader of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel and a Colombian guerrilla at the top of the list.

This list, published by the presidency with the portraits of those interested, is divided into three “levels”.

At the “first level”, arrives the leader of the formidable Sinaloa cartel, Ismael Mario Zambada Garcia, alias “El Mayo”. And Giovanny Andrés Rojas, alias “Araña” (the spider), the leader of a faction of the FARC dissidence (Colombian Marxist guerrilla which laid down its arms in 2016) active on the border between the two countries.

Apart from their name, alias and ID photo, the list gives no details about the two men, or their location.

Five men make up the “second level”, with a nice collection of aliases including “Orejas” (ears), “Cabeza” (head), “Marcus” and even “Chugo Porto”.

At the “third level”, there are four other individuals, including “The Tromp”, and especially the famous José Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito”, considered until recently to be public enemy number one in Ecuador. .

His escape at the beginning of January from the country’s largest penitentiary in Guayaquil (southwest) gave the signal for a spectacular revolt in the prisons and an unprecedented wave of violence throughout the territory by criminal groups involved in drug trafficking. . “Fito”, leader of the “Choneros”, the main gang in the country, remains nowhere to be found today.

Plagued by drug trafficking (while the country has in recent years become the main platform for the export of cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru), but also by corruption, Ecuador has since faced a serious security crisis. .

President Daniel Noboa, elected in November for 18 months, declared the country in “internal armed conflict” and deployed the army to neutralize around twenty criminal groups.

A national referendum will take place on Sunday, at the initiative of President Noboa, on a series of reforms aimed at better fighting crime.

The presidency also published an updated list of the main gangs linked to drug trafficking and their leaders: Lobos, Aguilas, Latin King, Tiguerones, Chone Killer, Lagartos, Mafia 18.

Many of these “military targets” operate “at the borders”, and “no one has had (so far) the courage to say their name or their location”, while their “structures are very large, very strong and transnational », Commented President Noboa.

“There are even governments that cooperate with these transnational structures,” accused the young head of state, while diplomatic relations are currently particularly tense with Mexico, and rather distant with neighboring Colombia: “Ecuador is open to cooperation with all countries, but we will never cooperate with crime, terrorism or drug trafficking.”