Quito, April 17. The Ecuadorian Armed Forces announced on Monday the capture of an alleged leader of the criminal gang calling himself “Los Tiguerones”, who authorities say has alleged links to one of the Armed Forces’ dissident groups. Revolutionaries of Colombia (FARC) .
The detainee, who bears the pseudonym of Elbi, was arrested during a series of raids carried out by the army in collaboration with the prosecution and the police in a neighborhood of the canton (municipality) of San Lorenzo, very close to the Ecuadorian border with Colombia.
The raids were carried out under the government’s state of emergency in Esmeraldas province since March 3 to counter rising murders and violent deaths, recording 70 homicides between January and February, allegedly linked to organized crime. and drug trafficking.
The state of emergency declared in Esmeraldas for 60 days allows the deployment of the armed forces in support of the work of the police to restore and maintain internal order and suspends fundamental rights such as assembly and the inviolability of the home.
The Armed Forces said in a statement that Elbi not only had leadership within “Los Tiguerones”, but also had links with the “Mobile Column Urías Rondón”, one of the FARC’s splinter groups.
Cases of murders, assaults and extortion resound daily in several cities of Ecuador, submerged for some years by a wave of insecurity and the appearance of criminal gangs, which have even exceeded the control of the forces of the order.
In a public address, the Colombian president, the leftist Gustavo Petro, claimed last week that the violence in Ecuador is even greater than in his country and expressed the need to discuss at an international conference a new policy anti-drug unified for the Latin countries. America and the Caribbean. EFE
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