The Government of Ecuador has transferred this Saturday to a maximum security prison, La Roca, in Guayaquil, the most dangerous criminal in the country, José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias phyto, leader of the criminal gang Los Choneros, which had the hegemony of crime in Ecuador. The measure came three days after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who at the end of July denounced that he had received a death threat from Fito. The Choneros are the operating arm of the Sinaloa cartel, according to police. Some 3,600 police and military officers participated in the operation to take the inmate from an ordinary prison to a maximum security prison located in the same Guayaquil prison complex at dawn.
Until now Fito was incarcerated in prison number 4, known as the Guayaquil Regional. In more than a dozen operations that the public forces have carried out on prisons in the last two years, this center was untouchable.
The authorities filmed the transfer of the prisoner and disseminated the images. With a naked torso, black underpants, a long beard, the man known for being a bloodthirsty, was subdued, with his hands tied behind his back, face down in the courtyard of the prison pavilion along with a hundred other prisoners. The prison system is on alert in case the government’s decision sparks a new prison riot, as has happened on other occasions, when it has transferred inmates in response to prison massacres.
The presidential candidate assassinated this week explained after Fito’s threats: it was “a warning that if I keep referring to him and his structure, they will attack me or make an attempt on my life.” Villavicencio filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office on the recommendation of his police custody, which the State granted him after analyzing that he had a 97% risk of being killed.
Fito has reasons to submit and not orchestrate a violent revolt, and it is his freedom. Last March, a Guayaquil prison guarantee judge extinguished four of his sentences. With that, he opened the way for his defense to use legal tricks so that he can benefit from pre-release, and finish serving his sentence outside of jail, as other leaders of Los Choneros did, such as Jorge Luis Zambrano, scratchy, and JR, both murdered months after being on the streets.
Fito grew up in Manta, a coastal city in the province of Manabí, a strategic location for drug trafficking. At 43 years old, he has 14 judicial processes for crimes such as murder, robbery, organized crime, possession of weapons, which add up to 34 years in prison, of which he has been in prison for 12. In that period he was on the run for 10 months after escaping with 16 other prisoners from the maximum security prison to which he has now been transferred in an operation that lasted eight hours.
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During the operation, the agents seized 3,400 grams of marijuana, 937 grams of cocaine, 147 ammunition, 195 fireworks, and other unauthorized items such as refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, speakers, sound equipment, and cell phones, according to a bulletin released. by the Presidency of Guillermo Lasso. But the document does not detail the high-caliber weapons used by the prisoners who escorted him in statements that José Adolfo Macías recorded from prison.
The last publication was on July 25, just after the massacre at the Litoral Penitentiary where 31 inmates were murdered. Fito announced a peace agreement with other gangs to end extortion and kidnapping, which has reached more than 17,000 complaints since 2022. The scene was unusual. The ringleader was seated and behind him were five men, four prisoners with weapons and a prison intelligence police officer. The Government described the incident as an “incident” and “an impertinence of the police,” according to the police commander, Fausto Salinas.
Fito’s rise to the leadership of Los Choneros occurred as a result of the murder of Rasquiña, who led the entire gang. Los Choneros gained a reputation as hitmen, although over time they expanded their list of crimes to extortion, robbery and drug trafficking. They were the first to create links with foreign cartels. According to police information, Los Choneros are the operational arm of the Sinaloa cartel, the first to be detected in large-scale drug trafficking in the country.
After the death of Rasquiña, at the end of 2020, the struggle to occupy that position led to violence in the country’s prisons in a wave of massacres that left nearly 300 dead in 2021. With bullets and blood, it was decided that Fito and JR would be in charge of Los Choneros, but his appointment ended up dividing the criminal group into other gangs with which they now face off, some of which work with the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.
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