Drug boss Jose Adolfo Macias is at massive after escaping from an Ecuadorean jail, triggering wave of gang violence.
The spouse and kids of Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive, drug kingpin Jose Adolfo Macias, have been arrested in Argentina and have been deported to Ecuador.
The Los Choneros gang chief, often called “Fito”, escaped from a jail within the port metropolis of Guayaquil this month, resulting in a surge in gang violence throughout Ecuador that prompted President Daniel Noboa to declare a 60-day state of emergency within the nation, which is residence to 17.8 million folks.
Argentina’s safety minister Patricia Bullrich stated: “We’re proud that Argentina was a hostile territory for a gaggle of drug sellers who may’ve come to settle right here. Mr Fito had a sentence of 38 years and he escaped, leaving a path of blood and demise in Ecuador.”
Fito’s spouse Mariela Macias, her three kids, a nephew, a household good friend and a nanny have been deported, Bullrich instructed a information convention on Friday.
Mariela arrived in Argentina two weeks in the past simply earlier than her husband escaped. In December, they purchased a home in an unique neighbourhood of Cordoba, in central Argentina, in money.
The authorities have been nonetheless investigating whether or not Fito solely despatched his household to Argentina or if he was or is within the nation, Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman reported from Buenos Aires.
Cordoba official Juan Pablo Quinteros stated the household’s short-term residence allow had been cancelled, permitting the authorities “to detain them and expel them from the nation”.
Inside minister Guillermo Francos stated: “Argentina is not going to be a den for criminals.”
Fito escaped on January 7 from a jail in Guayaquil the place he was serving time for numerous crimes, together with drug trafficking and homicide.
Authorities have tied Los Choneros to extortion, homicide and drug trafficking and accuse the group of controlling Ecuador’s crime-plagued and overcrowded prisons.
Beneath the state of emergency declared after Fito disappeared, the army was deployed onto the streets and a nationwide nightly curfew was mandated.
Incidents in January alone have included an on-air assault by armed males on a TV station, the taking of greater than 200 jail officers hostage and the kidnapping of law enforcement officials, in addition to the murder of a prosecutor pursuing organised crime.
