The Prosecutor’s Office charged organized crime on Friday against a judge, a former assembly member, a former provincial prosecutor, a former commissioner for the pacification of prisons in Ecuador and nine other people as part of a mega judicial case uncovered in December that pointed to the infiltration of drug trafficking in the country’s justice system, police and prisons.
The 13 new people involved by the Attorney General of Ecuador, Diana Salazar, are incorporated into a judicial file – called the “Metástasis” case – in which there was already a first group of 40 defendants as alleged members of that network.
Salazar said that this case is a “comprehensive x-ray of the profound decomposition that our justice, our politics and how it has been violated” at various levels of institutions such as judges, prosecutors, secretaries, police, experts, lawyers, prison guides, among others. Many others.
#NOW | #CaseMetástasis: with the presence of the State Attorney General, @DianaSalazarM2the hearing begins to link 13 people (including a judge and a prosecutor) to the case for alleged #organized crime in which 39 others involved are prosecuted. pic.twitter.com/1NSzYPKuil
— Prosecutor’s Office Ecuador (@FiscaliaEcuador) March 15, 2024
Among the latest defendants, there are businessmen, a police officer, prison guards and well-known figures from the world of politics and justice such as former assemblyman Ronny Aleaga, of the Citizen Revolution party led by former president Rafael Correa (2007-2017); the former prosecutor of the province of Guayas Yanina Villagómez or the former Colombian commissioner Claudia Garzón, who arrived in Ecuador in the middle of the prison crisis to begin peace talks between prisoners and the authorities, and judge Romel Tamayo.
“This case reveals how the judicial system is gangrenous in such a way that it is impossible to regenerate it if there is not a deep purification of all the corrupted structures,” emphasized the representative of the Public Ministry, who assured that “corruption and organized crime are two “lethal weapons” against democratic institutions.
The 13 defendants were discovered when the authorities advanced in the review of the cell phones of Leandro Norero, leader of a criminal network with connections to senior judicial officials, the police, the penitentiary system and even politicians, who was murdered last year in an Ecuadorian prison in a prisoner brawl.
Among those linked in December are Wilman Terán, the head of the body that supervises judges in the country and General Pablo Ramírez, who was the director of the penitentiary system and until recently was head of the Anti-Narcotics Police, as well as judges and lawyers. who operated in a support network for Norero, within the framework of the so-called “Metastasis Case”.
Tens of thousands of messages emerged from their conversations, of which the prosecution has disseminated a good portion to show how the drug trafficker continued to operate and exert influence on officials from prison.
Norero was murdered in 2022 and was accused by authorities of financing several organized crime groups and having ties to the Mexican cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación.
Judge Felipe Córdova will have to decide in the next few hours whether to accept the accusation and the request for connection made by Salazar.
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