“Kelvin Ruiz, leader of Los Choneros, writes you and someone has paid to shoot you,” the message with which criminals seek to extort money in Ecuador

This morning the journalist Arturo Barriga denounced, through his Twitter account, that he received several messages through the WhatsApp application from a person who identified himself as Kelvin Ruiz and claimed to be the leader of the Los Choneros criminal group.

“Arturo, excuse the insistence, I need to speak with you urgently about a serious and delicate matter that is happening,” you can read in one of the messages.

The communicator asks who he was and they reply: “This is Kelvin Ruiz, president and leader of the Los Choneros organization. There is a person who is paying three of our boys a few dollars to shoot you. I need to let you know who this person is. I suggest you call me this is serious and delicate”.

Upon receiving the messages, Barriga published them and asked the National Police for help: “@PoliciaEcuador they just wrote me this. What I do. They are going to shoot me, he says, “he wrote on Twitter.

In the responses to that tweet, several users indicated that they have also received messages from “Kelvin Ruiz”, some even claim that they wrote to them in November 2021. In fact, on December 2, Daniel Novillo also denounced having received calls from “Kelvin” and who identifies himself as the leader of Los Choneros.

I got a message from a number with an African country code, what should I do?

Eduardo Andino, another journalist, also responded by assuring that today the “same character” called him: “He threatened me too”.

The Police and the Ministry of Government contacted Barriga to “show solidarity” and investigate the threats that “are already daily”. “Hopefully the culprits will be found, initially petty criminals“Said the communicator in a tweet.

Is that this type of messages or calls are a new system of extortion that criminals would be applying to surprise their victims and ask them for money to “give them protection” and “not be killed.”

Due to the constant complaints, especially in social networks of this method, the Ministry of Government published a video asking citizens that if criminals write to extort money, the respective complaint be made.

The ministry indicated that the threatening messages have different connotations, from ensuring that they have kidnapped a relative to that hitmen have been hired to assassinate a person.

“Don’t let yourself be threatened. If they write to you threatening or saying that a relative of yours is in danger, report it. Text message scams are more common than you think”, It is affirmed in the video published by the State portfolio.

In 2021, 1,628 cases of digital extortion were registered, a higher figure than what was registered in 2019 and 2020, according to figures from the National Police.

At the beginning of the year 2021, extortion calls were registered from alleged members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) that were given mainly to doctors and dentists in Quito, but they were rapidly growing nationwide.

Art. 185 of the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code indicates “the person who, with the purpose of obtaining personal gain or for a third party, forces another, with violence or intimidation, to carry out or omit a legal act or business to the detriment of his patrimony or that of a third party ”, commits the crime of extortion. He receives a penalty of 3 to 5 years and can reach up to 7 years if there are other circumstances detailed in the criminal regulations.

Extortion from prisons

In October last year, merchants from Babahoyo, Los Ríos, reported being victims of extortion, via WhatsApp, by alleged members of criminal organizations who are in prisons. Money was required of them in exchange for “protection.”

That time, the intimidations did lead to material damage, since the merchants’ food premises were destroyed. (I)