Ecuador's Gangster Warlords and the Murder of a Presidential Candidate

The blow to Ecuador's democracy is another low point in the LatAm's crime wars

It can be hard to prove that a political assassination is a gangland hit. With governmental power and its lucrative bounty at stake, there are usually other political figures with a motivation to take out a rival. And there’s a bloody history of power players from generals to businessmen to intelligence agencies with a hand in political violence.

Yet with the tragic assassination of Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio at a campaign rally on Wednesday, there seems little doubt that gangsters are at least involved, although there could be other players too. A former muck-raking journalist, Villavicencio campaigned with the promise to expose the cartels in Ecuador and their links to corrupt politicians. In July, he stated categorically that a local boss of the Sinaloa Cartel had threatened to kill him if he didn’t stop. And Ecuador is suffering from a tidal wave of gangland violence with massacres, beheadings and other hits, such as on the mayor of Manta in July.

Furthermore, in Ecuador the gangsters have themselves become political power players. In the last four years, they have transformed from street gangs and smugglers to sprawling networks of prison mafias, cocaine cartels and paramilitary hit squads. As Colombia reports record coca production, Ecuador is a key gateway to shift the disco powder to the coast and then via the Panama Canal to the booming European market as well as to U.S. snorters.

Mexico’s two biggest cartels, the Sinaloans and Jaliscans, are entrenched there, working with local mafias such as Los Choneros and Los Lobos. And following the regional trend, the gangs have diversified to other rackets such as extortion. Their rise has turned Ecuador, which long appeared immune to the narco wars in Latin America, into one of its bloodiest battlegrounds.

For my 2016 book Gangster Warlords, I traveled across the continent to look at how different mafias have evolved, from the commandos in Brazil to the Maras in El Salvador to the cartels in Mexico. The same circumstances are found that allow them to flourish: marginalized communities from favelas to communas; dysfunctional justice systems; and lucrative black markets, especially in drugs, but in everything from illegal logging to gold mining.

These groups exert political power, controlling votes or bribing officials. And they wield paramilitary forces that go beyond crime to unleash warlike violence. In the twentieth century, conflicts across Latin America pitted left wing guerrillas against right wing dictatorships. Today, there is a chain of “crime wars,” involving rival mafia networks and violent, and often corrupt, security forces.

These conflicts threaten the very political and social systems of these societies. The murder of the candidate Villavicencio less than two weeks before the Aug. 20 election is a square blow to Ecuador’s democracy and another low point in the wave of crime wars. As Rafael Correa, the leftwing former president tweeted (or X’d) following the shooting: “Ecuador has become a failed state.”

“It’s Time For The Brave.”

The 59 year old Villavicencio, who had been a journalist working for outlets including the Guardian, as well as a union leader and lawmaker, was no stranger to conflict. He exposed corruption during Correa’s 2007 to 2017 rule. He sent documents to Wikileaks. Amid threats in 2017, he fled to Peru and requested asylum.

Returning home and winning a seat in Congress, he spoke against the “narco-generals” or high ranking military and police officers accused of working with cartels. When Washington took away their visas, Villavicencio remarked “The United States doesn’t take away a visa just because you have a pretty or ugly face.”

Selling himself as an anti-corruption candidate, Villavicencio was polling in the middle of eight presidential contenders. But he took an especially hardline against the gang warfare that has become the top issue in Ecuador. “Being silent and hiding in moments that criminals kill citizens and officials is an act of cowardice and complicity,” he said. “I double down on my decision to go on fighting daily to defeat the mafias.”

“Es tiempo de valientes,” became his slogan - “It’s time for the brave.”

These were not mere words. In July, he told reporters he’d been threatened by a head of the Sinaloa Cartel in Ecuador. “It has been revealed that there is a very serious threat from one of the Sinaloa Cartel bosses, I am referring to alias Fito, against me,” he said. “There is a warning that if I go on mentioning him and his structure, they will attack me, or try to take my life.” Fito is the nickname of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alleged head of the Choneros gang that works with the Sinaloan mob.

Despite the threat, Villavicencio carried on doing campaign events with minimal protection. Just a few days ago, he told a rally he had no fear. “They tell me to wear a [bulletproof] vest. Here I am in a sweaty shirt,” he told a cheering crowd. “You are my bulletproof vest. I don’t need it…The drug lords can come. Bring them on. The sicarios can come…They can bend me. They can never break me.”

He gave the his final rally to young supporters at a high school yesterday in the capital Quito. A video shows him in his last moments, just after 6 pm, flanked by campaign staff and supporters, getting in his car when a series of shots ring out. He took three bullets in the head and died at the scene.

A Messy Investigation

As the assassination topped global news bulletins, the investigation in Ecuador got off to a messy start. The suspected assassin was wounded by “security personnel,” the attorney general’s office said, and taken by police but then died in an ambulance. Rumors spread on social media that officers had killed him in custody.

Police carried out traffic stops and raids and detained another six people they said were involved in the hit but gave few details. They also found a car with a suitcase of guns and grenades that was included in the chain of evidence.

A few hours later, a video was released showing a group of men in ski masks waving rifles and flipping gang signs. They claimed to be from Los Lobos, who are affiliated with the Jalisco cartel, and said they took responsibility for the hit. Yet this morning, leaders of Los Lobos in prison released their own video showing their faces in which they said the whole thing was false.

“We don’t hide our faces and nobody speaks for us,” the apparent head of the mob said. “We reject the assassination of the presidential candidate, the señor Fernando Villavicencio. And we are clear that we have never murdered people of the government or civilians…Other criminal groups try to destablize the country.”

A common cartel tactic is to put out videos or messages and attribute them to a rival mob to make them take the heat.

Whoever carried out the hit, it has severely shaken Ecuador, which is already in crisis. President Guillermo Lasso, who is accused of embezzling funds and has rock bottom approval, declared a 60-day state of emergency and ordered a nationwide mobilization of troops. The elections will go on but in very difficult circumstances.

“It’s a political crime,” Lasso said. “We have no doubt that this murder is an attempt to sabotage the electoral process.”

Time will tell how much is has succeeded.

Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOutMedia 2023