Armed, masked men stormed a television station in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, on Tuesday, taking anchors and staff hostage and exchanging gunfire with police as cameras rolled before the intruders were subdued and arrested.
Violence, broadcast live, has erupted this week as the South American country has descended into chaos, with a powerful gang leader disappearing from prison, riots breaking out in several prisons and inmates kidnapping and threatening guards.
On air, one of the attackers who stormed the TV station was heard asking to be connected to a microphone, saying he wanted to send a message about the consequences of “joking at the mafias”. Before he could, the police intervened. The gunmen also forced the hosts and other staff held hostage to appear in a video asking the president not to interfere.
Police said on social media that they arrested 13 people after the incident, recovering “weapons, explosives and other evidence.” The hostages were also released safely the post said.
On Tuesday afternoon, at least eight people died and two others were injured in incidents of violence in Guayaquil, according to the city’s mayor, Aquiles Álvarez, who said: a press conference next to the police chief. Authorities also said five hospitals were overwhelmed.
Explosions, burning vehicles, looting and gunfire were also reported across the country, and authorities announced that a second major gang leader and other inmates had escaped from another prison.
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared an internal armed conflict on Tuesday and ordered the military to “neutralize” two dozen gangs, which he described as “terrorist organizations,” according to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter .
Shops, schools, government offices and buildings were closed. Workers were sent home and the streets of Quito and Guayaquil were clogged with traffic.
“It was chaotic, as you can imagine,” said Carolina Valencia, who was visiting family in Guayaquil from New York. “There was traffic everywhere because people just wanted to go home. The buses were completely out of order, so people were jumping into pickup trucks that were open in the back.”
“There was a lot of desperation,” he added. “Ever since this gangster disappeared, everyone has been in constant fear.”
Noboa, who has prioritized restoring security in a country awash in gang violence fueled by a thriving drug trade, had earlier declared a state of emergency and deployed more than 3,000 police and military officers to search for the escaped gang leader , Adolfo Macías.
The 60-day declaration imposes a nationwide nighttime curfew and allows the military to patrol the streets and take control of prisons.
“The time is over when drug traffickers, hitmen and organized crime dictate to the government what to do,” Noboa said in a video announcing the state of emergency on Monday, adding that it was necessary for police forces safety measures were taken. control of Ecuador’s prison system.
Mr. Macías, who is the leader of the Los Choneros gang and is better known as “Fito,” disappeared on Sunday from an overcrowded prison in the coastal city of Guayaquil, from which he long oversaw his group’s operations.
The government had ordered the transfer of high-profile prisoners, including Mr. Macías, from the cells where they ran their criminal networks to a maximum-security facility. This decision, according to prison experts, may have led to Mr. Macías’ escape and the prison riots.
Some security experts believe that at least a quarter of the country’s 36 prisons are controlled by criminal gangs. Noboa has vowed to regain control of the prisons, which have become both gang headquarters and recruitment centers.
Last week he announced he was seeking to hold a referendum on security measures, including tougher sentences for crimes such as murder and weapons trafficking, and on expanding the role of the army.
Noboa, the center-right scion of a banana dynasty, took office in November after an election dominated by security and economic concerns. Violence has soared in recent years as gangs have fought for control of lucrative drug trafficking routes that transport narcotics to the United States and Europe.
Such fears were amplified by the campaign assassination of another presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, who had claimed not long before his killing that he had been threatened by Los Choneros.
Mr. Macías is perhaps the best-known of the gang leaders who run drug operations from behind bars, and his group is believed to have been one of the first in Ecuador to forge ties with Mexico’s powerful cartels.
Mr. Macías, who is serving a 34-year sentence for crimes that include drug trafficking, escaped prison once in 2013. He became the leader of Los Choneros around 2020 and presided over the gang’s activities from his cell in the Guayaquil prison. , part of a complex that houses approximately 12,000 inmates.
After Mr. Villavicencio was murdered last summer, Mr. Macías was briefly moved to a maximum-security wing in the same complex. But his lawyer appealed, and a judge ordered that Mr. Macías be transferred to his preferred post in the Guayaquil prison, which serves as the Choneros’ base.
He celebrated by releasing a music video in the style of “narcocorrido,” a genre originating in Mexico that glorifies the violent exploits of drug traffickers.
Last month, Noboa, promoting his plans to tackle the country’s prisons, said he would start with measures such as cutting off Mr. Macías’ access to power outlets and routers. “You can see on YouTube that Fito’s cell has four outlets, more outlets than in a hotel room.”
Mr. Macías was found missing from his cell during a smuggling raid. According to officials, his disappearance occurred as he and other high-profile criminals were scheduled to be sent to maximum security prison.
A senior government official suggested this week that Mr. Macías may have learned of his impending transfer through a government leak. “It would be very serious,” said official Esteban Torres, because “it would mean there is rot at the highest levels of government.”
Securing Ecuador’s prisons is vital to ensuring that efforts to root out corruption are effective, said Will Freeman, a Latin American studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“You need to make sure that when you actually send people to prison for money laundering or for working in complicity with organized crime as public officials, that the punishment is meaningful and that they don’t simply continue to run criminal rings from prisons,” he said. she said.
He said a state of emergency could help stabilize prisons, since the entity charged with running the prison system has failed to control gangs, but that it is not a long-term solution. He noted that Mr. Noboa’s predecessor had repeatedly imposed similar measures.
“Obviously they haven’t improved the situation in any lasting way,” He said.
Jorge Núñez, an anthropologist who has studied the Ecuadorian prison system for years, said Noboa was not doing anything dramatically different when it came to the prison system.
“It’s a mix of improvisation and basically the same thing,” said Núñez, who said the previous government had handed the prisons over to the police, who had overlooked “growth and excessive empowerment of prison gangs”.
The privileges granted to cartel leaders have increased over time, he added.
Prison searches revealed not only vast caches of weapons and electronic devices, but also pigs, roosters and a cockfighting arena.
On Monday evening, as the first curfew approached, the streets of Quito, the capital, quickly became deserted. Only police cars and ambulances could be seen in a silent reminder of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
“The curfew affects us directly,” said Junior Córdova, a restaurant owner in Quito. “We had a great start to the year, but now things don’t look so good, because people are starting to get scared.”
Genevieve Glatsky contributed reports from Bogotá, Colombia, and José María León Cabrera from Quito, Ecuador.
