QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuador on Sunday extradited to the USA the chief of a violent Ecuadorian gang who relied on hitmen, bribes and navy weapons to do enterprise.
José Adolfo Macías Villamar, whose nickname is “Fito,” escaped from a jail in Ecuador final yr and was recaptured late June. In April, a U.S. Attorney indicted him in New York Metropolis on prices he imported hundreds of kilos of cocaine into the USA.
Macías “was faraway from the La Roca Detention Middle beneath the custody of the Nationwide Police and Armed Forces for the suitable proceedings within the context of an extradition course of,” Ecuador’s authorities company liable for overseeing prisons, SNAI, stated in a message despatched to journalists.
Particulars of the handover weren’t specified.
{A photograph} launched by SNAI confirmed Macías carrying a T-shirt, shorts, a bulletproof vest and helmet. A number of law enforcement officials had been guarding him at an undisclosed location.
The Ecuadorian will seem Monday earlier than Brooklyn’s federal courtroom “the place he’ll plead not responsible,” Macías’ lawyer Alexei Schacht advised The Related Press through e mail. After that, he shall be detained in a jail but to be decided, Schacht added.
The extradition choice got here after the USA despatched a doc to Ecuador providing ensures for the respect of the rights of the 45-year-old prison chief.
Since 2020, Macías has led “Los Choneros,” a prison group that emerged within the Nineties. The gang employed folks to purchase firearms and ammunition in the USA and smuggle them into Ecuador, in keeping with April’s indictment. Cocaine would movement into the USA with the assistance of Mexican cartels. Collectively, the teams managed key cocaine trafficking routes by means of Ecuador, violently focusing on regulation enforcement, politicians, attorneys and civilians who stood in the best way.
Macías escaped from a Guayaquil prison the place he was serving a 34-year sentence for drug trafficking, organized crime, and homicide. He was recaptured a yr and a half in a while the nation’s central coast.
Macías has cultivated a cult standing amongst fellow gang members and the general public in his residence nation. Whereas behind bars in 2023, he launched a video addressed to “the Ecuadorian folks” whereas flanked by armed males. He additionally threw events in jail, the place he had entry to all the things from liquor to roosters for cockfighting matches.
Macías is the primary Ecuadorian to be extradited to the U.S. from Ecuador, jail authorities stated. Two different Ecuadorian drug traffickers have beforehand been handed over to the USA however from Colombia, the place they had been arrested.