2024-01-17 22:54:28
An Ecuadorian anti-mafia prosecutor investigating the recent armed attack on a television station He was murdered this Wednesday in Guayaquil, marking a bloody escalation of the war that the country is experiencing with drug gangs.
The murder of prosecutor César Suárez, shot to death when he was driving his vehicle through a port neighborhood in the southwest of the country, was confirmed by the fiscal general, Diana Salazarin a video published in X.
“In the face of the murder of our colleague César Suárez (…) I am going to be emphatic: Organized crime groups, criminals, terrorists will not stop our commitment to Ecuadorian society,” Salazar said.
An official from the prosecutor’s office indicated that Suárez was in charge of determining which criminal group was behind the spectacular takeover during the broadcast of a program on the TC channel on January 9, in the midst of the crisis of drug-criminal violence in the country.
Suárez’s truck He had several bullet holes in the driver’s window.according to the images.
Police investigation units “are carrying out the pertinent investigations to find those responsible” in the country’s main port, the center of drug trafficking operations, according to a source from that institution.
Lack of control in Ecuador while the government wages a pitched battle once morest drug gangs
The attack once morest the TC channel was one of the first criminal acts that Ecuador suffered following the escape of the powerful Adolfo Macías or “Fito”, head of the country’s main gang, confirmed on January 8. It is still not clear who is behind this incident, in which hooded men threatened journalists and other workers with guns, rifles and grenades.
In the same week prisoners They held more than 100 prison officials until his release on Saturday.
Faced with the crisis unleashed at that time, President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict”, called the criminal gangs “terrorists” and deployed thousands of soldiers for the “war.”
The president regained control of the prisons and his government exhibited images of the subdued inmates.
Ecuador was for many years a country safe from drug trafficking, but was transformed into a new bastion of drug trafficking to the United States and Europe with bands fighting for control of the territory and united in their war once morest the State, especially Guayaquil due to its proximity to the Pacific.
In the last five years, the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants went from 6 to 46 in 2023 and the internal war hits rock bottom as it did in Colombia in the last century, but with an additional ingredient: burning prisons.
Los Prosecutors are in the crosshairs of more than twenty organizations criminals operating in Ecuador. In June of last year, prosecutor Leonardo Palacios was murdered in the town of Durán, neighboring Guayaquil, while Diana Salazar reported death threats from Los Lobos, one of the main criminal organizations.
Weeks before the attack once morest TC, the attorney general anticipated one of the worst drug attacks following revealing the Metastasis investigation, described as the cornerstone that will uncover “narcopolitics” in the country.
This Wednesday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE) condemned “the violence” and urged the Ecuadorian State “to investigate, judge and punish all facts with diligence.”
At the end of 2023, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito and Agustín Intriago, mayor of Manta, one of the country’s main cities, also died as victims of criminals.
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