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Ecuador’s president has announced that the country’s most-wanted fugitive, Los Choneros gang leader “Fito,” has been recaptured more than a year after his escape from prison triggered a wave of violence.

“We have done our part to proceed with Fito’s extradition to the United States, we are awaiting their response,” President Daniel Noboa wrote on X.

Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as Fito, escaped custody in Ecuador in early 2024. American prosecutors charged him, in absentia, with seven counts of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling.

Macias Villamar’s January 2024 escape resulted in a surge of gang-related violence in Ecuador that lasted for days and left about 20 people dead.

Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency in nearly a third of the country’s provinces to quell the violence, but Macias Villamar remained at large until today’s announcement.

The president said Fito was in the custody of special military forces fighting narcotics trafficking.

The army and police reported that he was captured during an operation in the city of Manta, a fishing port in the western part of the country considered a stronghold for his gang.

Cartel terror campaign

Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters, Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs vie for control and establish ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels.

Macias Villamar is the leader of Los Choneros, the leading criminal gang in a country plagued by organised crime.

Gang wars largely play out inside the country’s prisons, where Macias Villamar wielded immense control.

He had been held since 2011, serving a 34-year sentence for organised crime, drug trafficking and murder.

When he escaped, he was also considered a suspect in ordering the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio.

In the hours after his escape, prison riots broke out and four police officers were taken hostage, with one forced to read a threatening message to Noboa.

Armed men wearing balaclavas took over a television station during a live broadcast, forcing the terrified crew to the ground and firing shots.

Soon after, Noboa announced the country was in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralise” the gangs.

US prosecutors allege Macias Villamar’s gang worked with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel to control key drug trafficking routes between South America and the US.

Ecuador’s Government had offered a US$1 million (NZ$1.65m) reward for information leading to his capture.

If convicted, he faces life in prison.

-Agence France-Presse