2024-01-10 03:30:00
After a shocking day of armed violence that took place this Tuesday during a television broadcast in Guayaquil (Ecuador)the authorities reinforce a highly urgent operation to find the whereabouts of two dangerous drug traffickers who remain at large: On the one hand, José Adolfo Macías Salazar, leader of the criminal gang “Los Choneros” and known as “Fito”and on the other Fabricio Colon Picoalias “Captain Pico” or “The Savage”drug lord who leads “Los Lobos” in Pichincha.
José Adolfo Macías Salazar, alias Fito, was born on November 18, 1979. He is the fugitive considered “most dangerous” in Ecuador after his escape from prison, from where he commanded the powerful criminal gang known as “Los Choneros.”
They attribute drug trafficking, extortion, hitmen and arms trafficking operations to this criminal organization. In addition to their confrontation with the authorities, “Los Choneros” maintain a tense conflict in parallel with other drug trafficking criminals, such as “Los Lobos” and “Los Tiguerones.”
Little is known about Fito’s past: his “humble” status after having worked as a taxi driver, while currently the Ecuadorian government designates him as a “criminal with extremely dangerous characteristics.”
The alarms about his unknown hiding place went off on Sunday, when the uniformed officers noticed his absence in an operation. The criminal had left a prison adorned with images that exalt his own figure, including weapons, dollars and lions.
From then on, the public force activated a voluminous plan to find the head of a drug gang that emerged in the 90s in the coastal province of Manabía strategic area for drug trafficking to the United States and Europe.
The local government believes that he could have escaped “hours before” the police intervention in the Guayaquil Regional Prison (southwest), where he was considered the boss.
In accordance with AFPdifferent videos exposed a series of celebrations that “Fito” had inside the prison with musicians and pyrotechnics. She even recorded – according to this news agency – in a patio 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.
Fito exercised “significant internal control of the penitentiary center,” said the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in a 2022 report made after a meeting with the capo.
The organization added that both Macías and Junior Roldán, another leader of Los Choneros murdered last year in Colombia, had “differentiated and preferential treatment by the authorities” prisons.
Fito’s rise to become leader of “Los Choneros”, a 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.
The then brand new drug lord he graduated as a lawyer in prisonwhere he fulfilled 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 death of Rasquiña had brought together a good part of smaller organizations.
In accordance with Insight Crime, the latest changes in the leadership of Los Choneros “have motivated internal struggles in the group and its subgroups.” Gangs 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 Los Lobos”, whose leader in Quito also escaped from a prison in Riobamba (south) on Tuesday.
The Choneros were first dedicated to traditional crime with assaults on the high seas, they engaged 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.
On social networks, Los Choneros present themselves as “Robin Hood-style do-gooders” and produce their own content that glorifies drug trafficking. Another of their virtual activities consists of threatening journalists and issuing 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.
Obese, bearded and with unkempt hair, Fito is the feared leader who went from starring in viral rap songs in the crime scene to once again being on the cover of the media after the assassination of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicenciowho accused him of having threatened him a week before being shot in August by a Colombian hitman.
Justice did not convict Fito for that crime, but the government of then President Guillermo Lasso (2021-2023) ordered his transfer to a maximum security prisonin 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” is circulating around Ecuador, which is bleeding amid clashes unleashed after his escape. It is estimated that his assets reach 17 million dollars..
In 2013 he hatched a plan to escape from prison. He escaped by boat on the Daule River, but three months later he was recaptured.
The authorities who intervened on May 26 to recapture Fito announced that the criminal and his brother Ronal Javier Macías Villamar They had been tracked thanks to reports received by the then Minister of the Interior, José Serrano Salgado, via email.
Since then, “Fito” was transferred to the Litoral Penitentiary in the city of Guayaquil.
Who is Fabricio Colón Pico, “The Savage”
Fabricio Colón Pico, leader of Los Lobos in Pichincha, escaped this week along with 38 other inmates from the Riobamba prison. He is also known as for his “The wild” or “Captain Pico.” This is the drug lord who Prosecutor Diana Salazar accused her of trying to murder her.
The press in his country defines him as the leader of the “most violent gang in Ecuador.”
“El Salvaje” was arrested in Quito on January 5accused of kidnapping, after the prosecutor’s statements.
After the arrest, publications were recorded on social networks that revealed the tension between Los Lobos and Los Choneros.
In fact, those around Colón Pico even stated that his arrest and the simultaneous escape of “Fito” served as proof of an alleged “alliance between the government of Daniel Noboa and Los Choneros.”
The criminal managed to escape on January 8 in the context of a transfer operation to a maximum security prison. Given the magnitude of the case, members of the Ecuadorian forces are investigated.
“El Salvaje” is 44 years old and has a extensive career in organized crime. More than 2 decades ago he was arrested while stealing while posing as a police officer.
The leader of Los Lobos starred 17 arrests and 30 judicial processes for drug trafficking, murder, organized crime, robbery or extortion, according to statistics published on the Ecuadorian site First fruits.
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