2023-11-03 17:59:00
Being tattooed with an eagle or a tiger on your skin poses a risk of death in Ecuador because it can be a sign of belonging to one of the many gangs that proliferate in the country and have usurped these animal symbols.
Los Lobos (wolves), Las Aguilas (eagles), Los Tiguerones (tiger) and the powerful gang of Choneros, whose emblem is the lion, today sow terror in this small country once considered a haven of peace between two largest producers of cocaine in the world: Colombia and Peru.
Wolves, lions, eagles or tigers are tagged on the walls of houses to signify the belonging of an entire neighborhood to a clan and are tattooed in ink on the bodies of their members.
In the port city of Guayaquil, now the epicenter of drug trafficking and all violence between gangs, criminals and police pay particular attention to these marks of belonging.
“I always prefer to keep my tattoo hidden under my clothes,” a young man who has a tiger tattooed on his back explains to AFP on condition of anonymity. Not because he belongs to a gang, but because only a few years ago he loved the animal and its symbolism, without imagining that one day it could put his life in danger.
“It’s so absurd that we are pigeonholed, stigmatized for that” as a member of a gang, he complains.
“Assured death”
The tattoo artists themselves are caught in the turmoil and some “have been killed”, one of them told AFP.
“Not for their gang ties but because someone discovered that they had simply covered a tattoo” or one day made a tattoo for a rival, says the young man, wishing to remain anonymous because he once served a gang . “They defile art,” he laments today.
“I do research on social networks to find out who is contacting me” to get a tattoo, explains Jean Paolo, another tattoo artist from Guayaquil. “In the face of danger I literally have to behave like a member of the FBI.”
Depending on the context, a tattoo can mean “assured death,” he confirms.
During a simple check, police and soldiers look for the slightest tattoo that could signify membership in a gang.
The same goes for new recruits, who do not have any trace of it if they want to join the armed forces, who seek to protect themselves from infiltration.
Colonel Roberto Santamaria, police chief of Nueva Prosperina, Guayaquil’s most violent neighborhood, says tattoos are now about identity and loyalty to gangs, as is the case in Central America with the infamous “maras” (criminal gangs) and its members of MS-13 or Barrio 18 fully tattooed, sometimes even up to their faces.
“Drug culture leads to the creation of legends and stories, and it is a way of recruiting minors by making them believe that they are part of a structure,” he told AFP.
On his cell phone, he shows images of men with skin covered in animal tattoos, an AK47 machine gun in their hands.
“Each gang has its own particularity. Los Tiguerones, for example, is a tiger with a beret and stars which represent the hierarchy within the gang,” explains Mr. Santamaria.
In Ecuador’s ultra-violent prison system, where clashes between rival gangs have left some 460 dead since 2021, with victims found dismembered, decapitated or cremated, a simple tattoo is also synonymous with life or death.
The new convicts “identify themselves according to the symbols tattooed on their bodies so as not to be placed in a wing run by another gang, because they know that if they are taken there, they will die,” says the police colonel.
03/11/2023 16:57:31 – Guayaquil (Ecuador) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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