2024-01-18 00:49:32
Barcelona The prosecutor who was investigating the assault by an armed group on a television channel in Ecuador last week was shot dead this Wednesday in Guayaquil, as confirmed by the country’s Prosecutor’s Office. César Suárez had open cases related to drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime.
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The Attorney General of Ecuador, Diana Salazar, has condemned the crime and assured that the Public Ministry will not stop its fight against organized crime groups. “Organized crime groups, criminals, terrorists, will not stop our commitment to Ecuadorian society. We will continue with more strength and commitment”, said Salazar, who asked the police to guarantee the safety of state officials.
The Latin American country is immersed in an unprecedented spiral of violence due to the terror unleashed by drug gangs. On Wednesday of last week, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, declared a state of war against the attacks carried out by the cartels in several places in the country and ordered the deployment of the army and the police to put an end to the organized crime groups, which he declared terrorists.
The murdered prosecutor was investigating the assault by ten hooded men on a television station in Guayaquil, in which, during a live broadcast on January 9, they took a group of workers hostage at gunpoint, before being subdued by the police. The case is being investigated as a crime of terrorism. A few days ago Suárez had interrogated the 13 detainees: the eleven adults were sent to preventive detention and the two minors to an internment center. According to the newspaper The universethis Tuesday he had asked for police security.
Anticorruption Prosecutor
According to the local newspaper Express, Suarez was known in the country’s judicial world for investigating major corruption cases and had been threatened before, although he had not been assigned protection. This Wednesday he was killed in the car he was driving. There were more than 20 bullet holes in the vehicle.
Guayaquil is one of the cities most affected by this growing violence, as it is also one of the epicenters of drug trafficking in Ecuador. But the situation of chaos affects much of the country, with a wave of attacks, explosions and kidnappings. The assaults and other attacks last week followed the prison break of drug lord José Adolfo Macías Villamar, aka Issue, the head of the Los Choneros gang, who is considered the most dangerous criminal in the country. Days later, another escaped from prison capo, Fabricio Colón, after a riot. The Prosecutor’s Office has linked Colón, leader of the Los Lobos cartel, to the assassination ordered by a hitman of presidential candidate Fernando Villavencio in the August election campaign. Los Choneros are a branch of the Mexican Jalisco cartel and in Ecuador they dispute power with Los Lobos, who are allied with the Sinaloa cartel. However, the gang that attacked the TV channel was another, Los Tiguerones, according to the police.
Noboa, who has only been in office for two months, had promised a “tough-handed” plan to regain control of prisons, many of which are dominated by organized crime gangs. Since 2020, more than 450 prisoners have been killed in various institutions, victims of wars between rival groups. Last January 9, in addition to the break-in to the television channel, other violent acts were committed, including the kidnapping and murder of police and prison officials.
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