Alias ”Fito” was sentenced to 34 years in prison for different crimes. From prison, he threatened Villavicencio with death. Photo: Courtesy.
The assassination of Ecuadorian politician Fernando Villavicencio was preceded by threats against him launched by alias “Fito”, leader of the Los Choneros narco group, the most powerful Creole mafia that plagues Ecuador, and considered a subsidiary of the Sinaloa cartel, from Mexico.
Ecuadorian authorities maintain the high presumption that it was this criminal group that launched its assassins to kill the presidential candidate, who insisted in his electoral campaign to apply a strong hand against organized crime, with emphasis on the drug traffickers who operate with tentacles in South America. .
The Los Choneros group is accused of being a partner of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, and of forming the “cooperative” it has in Paraguay, a key site for cocaine shipments to Europe, Africa and Asia.
The Choneros face in Ecuador gangs dedicated to the same criminal category, among which, the main opponent is the gang called Los Lobos. In a video released today, alleged members of this group appear, claiming responsibility for the fatal attack on Villavicencio. However, shortly after, in another video, members of Los Lobos appear, with their faces uncovered, denying that they were the assassins of the politician.
The “vindication” of the crime, and then the denial, falls within the internal dispute between the Choneros and Los Lobos, these identified with the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, from Mexico, enemies of those from Sinaloa.
Expert criminologists from Ecuador, as well as official records, mention that between the Choneros and Los Lobos, there are more than 20,000 soldiers operating on various fronts, and that the trend is towards growth, given that the business of sending cocaine to Europe (one of whose key routes is Paraguay) is constantly increasing.
The more than 40,000 tons of cocaine that recently left via Paraguay (seized in European ports, and to a much lesser extent in Asunción ports) confirmed that our country is currently one of the main platforms and route for drug shipments to the old continent. Paraguay has one of the largest commercial shipping fleets in South America, which added to the almost zero control system in ports, and the corruption of officials, place it as a preponderant site for the shipment of narcotics, camouflaged among agribusiness products.
The former Minister of the Interior of Ecuador, Patricio Carrillo, outlined that the mafia groups structured a system of cooperation on the continent, to ensure drug shipments.
“This route is the one that is causing us the greatest amount of violence and it is where the alliances between drug traffickers and cartels from various countries and specific nationalities are also evident, with extremely tough and violent mafias, such as the Albanian, Russian, Italian and China, among othershe stressed.
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PARAGUAY CONNECTION
Who are the visible faces of the Paraguayan connection with the main centers of Ecuador and Mexico?
After the seizure in Germany of 10 tons of cocaine from Paraguay, authorities in our country have so far issued timid results about those involved (of weight) in managing drug shipments, amid loads of sesame.
Initially they pointed to the “entrepreneurs”
Guillermo Federico Rey Torres, Paraguayan, and Gonzalo Aparicio Sosa, Uruguayan, as the perpetrators of the crime. Shortly after, however, both turned out to be two subjects linked to micro-trafficking, who used false documents to enable the Nopal SA briefcase company to export agricultural products.
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