Ecuador’s most wanted criminal, the leader of the Los Choneros crime group, Jose Adolfo Macias, has escaped from prison, where he was serving time for drug trafficking and murder.
Macias, known by his alias Fito, was jailed and sentenced to 34 years in 2011, Reuters reported.
Police in Ecuador have reportedly launched a massive search and operation involving more than 3,000 law enforcement officers.
In a statement given at a press conference, presidential spokesman Roberto Izurieta said: “We are grateful for the courage and commitment of the law enforcement forces that intervened in the prison in an operation involving more than 3,000 people. in search of the most wanted prisoner.”
Macias was arrested after Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed last August after a rally in the country’s capital Quito, accusing Los Choneros and Macias, who he linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, of threatening him and his campaign team. before the assassination.
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According to his campaign manager, Villavicencio received at least three death threats before the fatal shooting.
Macias was moved to a maximum security facility three days after Villavicencio’s murder.
The Los Choneros crime group has been linked to extortion, murder and drug-trafficking crimes in Ecuador, and has also been accused of controlling some of the country’s prisons.
Official figures show that more than 400 inmates have died since 2021 due to clashes between rival criminal gangs in Ecuador’s overcrowded prisons.
