Ecuador Gang War: 178 People Being Held Hostage in 7 Prisons Nationwide

Penitentiary authorities in Ecuador confirmed on Thursday that violent gangs are holding at least 178 people hostage across seven prisons in the country as part of a wider war between the nation’s organized crime syndicates and the newly minted government of President Daniel Noboa.

Noboa, the 36-year-old son of a banana magnate, began his presidential term in November, committing to policies intended to eliminate organized crime in the country. On January 4, Noboa announced that he had greenlit a plan to build two new “mega-prisons” in the country modeled after a sprawling prison complex built in El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele has similarly waged war on Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and other violent gangs.

Newly sworn-in President Daniel Noboa waves from a balcony of the Carondelet presidential palace in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023 (AP Photo/Carlos Noriega).

On Sunday, shortly after Noboa promised to destroy the gangs, José Adolfo “Fito” Macías, the head of the Choneros, Ecuador’s most powerful gang, disappeared from the prison housing him. Macías is considered Ecuador’s most dangerous criminal and had been in prison since 2011 serving a 34-year sentence for a variety of crimes, including drug trafficking, homicide, and racketeering. He was scheduled to be transferred to a maximum-security prison on Sunday, but prison guards did not find him in his cell when they went to pick him up.

Adolfo Macías, aka Fito, leader of the Los Choneros criminal gang, is transferred to “The Rock” maximum security prison in Guayaquil, Ecuador in this army handout released on August 12, 2023 (Ecuadorean armed forces via AFP).

Macías’s disappearance prompted gang members around the country to riot, staging prison breaks and attacks on police officers. Noboa responded by declaring a “state of exception,” a formal emergency decree that allows the president to implement curfews and limit the freedom of assembly, which preceded an escalation in gang violence against civilians. After a particularly disturbing incident in which gang members stormed a national television studio and took the anchors and staff hostage on the air, Noboa escalated his response by escalating the situation to an “internal armed conflict” – essentially a civil war:

Inside the prison system, organized inmate uprisings have resulted in the mass abduction of prison guards and office staffers. Ecuador’s National Service for Whole Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Violators (SNAI), the national-level agency in charge of prisons, confirmed on Thursday afternoon that 178 people remained hostage in seven prisons around the world:

“Due to the disturbances and incidents in the penitentiary system, at the moment security operations and protocol are in place to liberate 158 penitentiary security agents and 20 administrative services personnel who are detained,” a statement published online by SNAI reported. “We are working permanently, continuously, and responsibly to safeguard the integrity of the [hostages].”

“We request that citizens follow reports from official channels and do not generate disinformation while work continues to safeguard human lives,” the agency added:

SNAI also confirmed the escape of three prisoners on Wednesday, a number expected to grow as prison authorities subdue prison riots and begin confirming who remains in the facilities.

The agency did not offer any details about who the individuals are or their status in the prisons. It indicated that it had no reason to believe any of the hostages were killed or injured, though the situation remains fluid at press time. As of Wednesday, the head of the Ecuadorian armed forces, Jaime Vela, told reporters that no hostages since the gang war erupted had been killed.

The “internal armed conflict” declaration allows Noboa to deploy the military against Ecuadorian citizens. The president announced the listing of 22 gangs, the Choneros being the largest among them, as “terrorist organizations,” making them legitimate targets for the Ecuadorian military.

“We are in a state of war,” Noboa categorically declared in an interview on Wednesday, “and we cannot cede to these terrorist groups.”

The president estimated that the gangs he targeted consisted of more than 20,000 members, most of them young men, and denounced prior presidential administrations for allowing the criminal gang threat to metastasize in the country.

“This government is taking the necessary actions that in the past few years nobody wanted to take,” he said. Noboa declared that the full-scale gang war required “ostrich eggs, not cardboard eggs,” using the Spanish-language vernacular equivalent for “balls.”

“We are living through a very difficult time. … We are struggling for national peace,” he continued. “We are struggling also against terrorist groups who today number over 20,000 people who comprise them and they had not been named or identified.”

Ecuador’s largest cities awoke on Thursday to the pervasive presence of soldiers patrolling the streets and responding to localized gang attacks and bomb threats. Quito, the capital of Ecuador, documented three bomb threats in five hours on Thursday, all of them reportedly neutralized.

Primicias, an Ecuadorian news outlet, described soldiers combing through the streets of Guayaquil, the country’s largest city, looking for young men with gang identifiers, such as tattoos, in some cases forcing suspects to disrobe and take off their shoes to ensure they do not bear gang insignia on their bodies.

Ecuadorian authorities have tallied 14 people in gang violence killed this week as of Thursday morning.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.