the president declares a state of emergency after the escape of public enemy number 1

Police reported that at least four members of the security forces were kidnapped during the night from Monday to Tuesday, in the midst of a state of emergency.

The President of Ecuador declared, Monday January 8, a state of emergency for the entire country, including in the prison system, after the escape of public enemy number 1. “I have just signed the decree on the state of emergency so that the armed forces have all the political and legal support in their actions”, declared Daniel Noboa, in a video broadcast by the presidency. The army is thus authorized, for 60 days, to maintain order in the streets and prisons of the country, where a curfew has been declared between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. local time.

Security forces are also mobilized to hunt down Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito”, leader of the largest criminal gang in Ecuador. The authorities are “hard at work to find this extremely dangerous individual” who allegedly fled on Sunday, “a few hours” before a control operation carried out in the Guayaquil prison, said the government’s communications secretary. The prosecution announced Monday that it had opened an investigation against two prison officials “who would have participated in the escape” from “Fito”. He had been serving a 34-year prison sentence since 2011 for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.

Four police officers kidnapped

The police also reported that at least four members of the security forces were kidnapped during the night from Monday to Tuesday, in the midst of a state of emergency. Three disappeared in the coastal town of Machala while on duty, and the fourth in the capital, Quito.

A country that has become a logistics center for shipping cocaine to the United States and Europe, Ecuador is ravaged by the violence of gangs and drug traffickers. Homicides increased by almost 800% between 2018 and 2023, and prisons are regularly the scene of massacres between rival gangs. Daniel Noboa was elected in the fall of 2023, on the promise of curbing insecurity in the country and regaining control of prisons.