The Most Wanted In Ecuador: 10 Criminals Have Ties To The Sinaloa Cartel And CJNG.

Mica for cartelinsider.com

The escape of the two main leaders of criminal organizations in Ecuador pushed the country into a wave of violence that forced President Daniel Noboa to acknowledge that they are in a “state of war”. The Choneros and Los Lobos – groups allegedly linked to the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG – unleashed a series of attacks against police, military, and civilians that have already resulted in more than a dozen deaths.

In the face of this wave of violence, the Armed Forces and the Police of Ecuador launched on their X account (previously Twitter) @131Rewards the list with the names of the 20 most wanted criminals in the country, more than half with alleged connections to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

The list is topped by Fabricio Colón Pico, also known as “Captain or Commander Pico”, leader of the criminal organization Los Lobos, a group that was founded in 2019 as a cell of Los Choneros but that, starting in 2021, led an alliance against their former allies for control of organized crime in Ecuador. The union was known as New Generation.

According to research by InSight Crime and the Situational Assessment of Drug Trafficking in Ecuador, the name “Nueva Generación” (New Generation) for the alliance between Los Lobos, Tiguerones, and Chone Killers (Choneros Fatales) is a nod to their connections with the CJNG led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho”.

Next to “El Capitán Pico”, the nicknames of five other members of Los Lobos appear: “Comandante Vicente”, “Gordo Clemente”, “Santos”, “La Rata” and “JJ”, all of them pointed out as the main responsible for crimes such as robberies, extortions, drug trafficking and for being responsable for the massacres in Ecuadorian prisons that have claimed the lives of more than 300 inmates.

The Wolves are the second largest criminal organization in Ecuador -second only to Los Choneros- with a force of eight thousand men. From the part of Los Choneros, the alias of “El Conejo” appears and -separately- the wanted poster of José Adolfo Macías Villamar “El Fito”, the other criminal who escaped from prison before unleashing terror on the streets and prisons of Ecuador.

In the list of the most wanted criminals, “El Cocoy” and “El Lagarto”, members of Los Tiguerones, also appear; as well as “El Calillo”, member of Los Choneros Fatales.

Investigations by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recognize that Ecuador is a strategic corridor for the CJNG and Sinaloa Cartel in their routes for the trafficking of cocaine through air and maritime means.

Therefore, the Situational Assessment of Drug Trafficking warns that since 2020 the CJNG may have established contact with local criminal organizations in order to facilitate the storage of cocaine in regions such as Los Ríos, Santa Elena, and Manabí in exchange for weapons and drugs that would allow Los Lobos and their allies to face the war they are engaged in against Los Choneros.

The case of the Sinaloa Cartel is similar, although their contacts with Ecuadorian individuals extended until the year 2003 and to areas such as Sucumbíos, Pichincha, Manabí, Los Ríos, Santa Elena, and Guayas; although the connections between Sinaloa and Ecuador were revealed in 2009 with the arrest of Army captain Telmo Remigio Castro.

The soldier was accused of facilitating the shipment of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico through Ecuadorian ports using speedboats and hidden shipments in containers.

The alliance of the Sinaloa Cartel remained intact until the murder of Remigio Castro in December 2019. This event not only marked the end of an era and resulted in the breakup of Los Choneros with Los Lobos and the beginning of the war; it also gave rise to two new narco leaders in Ecuador identified by the US Department of Justice as Wilfredo Emilio Sánchez Farfán and César Emilio Montenegro Castillo, both of whom continued their relationship with Sinaloa.

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