Ecuadorian police have reported the release of 49 people who had been kidnapped by the powerful Los Lobos criminal gang in the south of the country. The Ecuadorian armed forces also said that five people were found dead, four of them dismembered.
Two of the alleged kidnappers from the Los Lobos gang were arrested in a joint police and armed forces raid in Camilo Ponce Enríquez, a mining area in the province of Azuay.
A video released by police showed heavily armed officers entering what appeared to be a mine tunnel. Authorities released scant information about those freed.
An earlier post on the armed forces’ social media claimed that three women were among the kidnapping victims. Dynamite, weapons and ammunition were seized during the raid, security forces added.
Los Lobos is one of the most powerful criminal gangs in Ecuador with approximately 8,000 members.
Originally a prison gang accused of instigating some of Ecuador’s bloodiest prison riots, in recent years Los Lobos has expanded its operations and now wields considerable power outside the prison system.
Its members are involved in contract killings, kidnappings for ransom and extortion.
The gang has also forged ties with Mexico’s Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, for which it is suspected of smuggling cocaine from Colombia through Ecuador’s port cities to the United States and Europe.
Increase in violence
Ecuador has seen a rise in gang violence in recent years as transnational criminal organizations have expanded into the Andean country to take advantage of its large ports to export drugs.
Fueled by drug money and armed by their Mexican allies, Los Lobos have become a major enemy of the Ecuadorian state.
In January, following a particularly bloody wave of killings and attacks by more than 20 criminal gangs, President Daniel Noboa labelled them “terrorist organisations” and deployed the army to try to quell the violence.
Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city and its most important port, has so far borne the brunt of gang-related violence, but the Azuay raid suggests Los Lobos now view mining areas as lucrative targets.
One of the peculiarities of this territorial struggle for control of the drug trafficking business is that it has taken place from Ecuador’s prisons, where – according to the authorities and various reports from international organizations – the criminal structure is coordinated.
Although this is not an unprecedented event in Latin America – where criminals continue to control their organizations within penitentiary centers – the Ecuadorian case is unique.
One of the first signs of the deterioration of the security situation occurred on February 23, 2021, when 79 prisoners were decapitated inside the facilities of the Guayas regional prison, located in Guayaquil.
The massacre prompted organizations such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to visit Ecuadorian prisons and report a worrying situation.
“There is unprecedented corruption within prisons, which is a response to the State’s abandonment of the penitentiary system years ago, as well as the absence of a comprehensive criminal policy, which has led to self-government,” the IACHR said in its report following the visit.
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