Quito (AFP) – Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord has agreed to be extradited to the United States to face cocaine and weapons smuggling charges, a court in Quito said Friday. Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” was captured in June after escaping from a maximum security prison last year in a jailbreak that sparked a severe wave of gang violence.
Macias, head of the “Los Choneros” gang, is wanted in the United States on charges of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of Ecuadoran law enforcement early last year after escaping from prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. He had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
President Daniel Noboa’s government at the time released “wanted” posters and offered $1 million for information leading to Macias’s recapture. In a country plagued by drug-related crime, Los Choneros members responded with violence — using car bombs, holding prison guards hostage and storming a television station during a live broadcast.
After months of pursuit, Macias was recaptured last month in a massive military and police operation in which no shots were fired. He was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, and Noboa declared he would be extradited “the sooner the better.” “We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law,” Noboa told CNN at the time.
– Fighting cocks and mariachi bands –
Macias, dressed in an orange prison uniform, took part in a court hearing Friday by video link from a high-security prison in Guayaquil. In response to a judge’s question, he replied, “Yes, I accept (extradition).” Given his consent, the court said in a statement “the pertinent procedure for the transfer process” will now follow, with Noboa having to sign the official handover papers. This would make Macias the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since the measure was written into law last year after a referendum in which Noboa sought the approval of measures to boost his war on criminal gangs.
Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control. Gang wars have largely played out inside the country’s prisons, where Macias wielded immense control. He was the unofficial boss of his Guayaquil prison, where authorities found images glorifying the gangster, weapons and US dollars. Videos of parties he held in the prison showed the use of fireworks and a mariachi band. In one clip, he appeared waving, laughing and petting a fighting rooster. Macias earned his law degree behind bars.
By the time he escaped, he was considered a suspect in the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio in 2023. Soon after Macias’s prison break, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralize” the gangs. Los Choneros has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan — the world’s largest cocaine exporter — and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data. In 2024, the country seized a record 294 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine.
© 2024 AFP
