Ecuador receives help from the US to confront the fight against violence

A plane USA with help to confront the fight against violence unleashed by criminal organizations came to Ecuadorit was officially reported on Tuesday, while the authorities assured that the siege on the fugitive leader of the largest gang in the country is tightening.

Admiral Jaime Vela, head of the joint command of the Armed Forces, stated in a press conference that a plane landed on Monday night “Antonov in Ecuadorian territory… which brings cooperation from the United States” whose content he did not detail.

He recalled that since the previous year, Ecuador has maintained an agreement with that country as a result of which material collaboration has been sent and specified that “What is being done is to accelerate the arrival of that aid”. A high-level American mission is in the Ecuadorian capital, chaired by Christopher Dodd, special envoy for the Americas of the president of the United States.

Vela stated that there are 45 other countries that are supporting Ecuador in the fight against crime.

Since the beginning of 2021, organized crime gangs linked to drug trafficking unleashed a wave of violent deaths, extortions, kidnappings and repeated riots in Ecuador’s prisons that seemed to reach another level at the beginning of January when a group of hooded men took over a television channel. its personnel with weapons and explosives, which was broadcast live.

Asked about the search for Adolfo Macías, alias FitoVela highlighted that “We are getting closer and surely… you are feeling it”, pFor which Ecuador has the help of the intelligence of the United States and Colombia, “who are supporting us significantly in this type of work,” said.

According to Ecuadorian authorities, the leader of the country’s largest criminal organization, Los Choneros, disappeared on January 7 from a prison in Guayaquil and then another regional leader of another gang, Fabricio Pico, fled, who could not be located.

After that, President Daniel Noboa decreed a state of internal war to confront the unbridled criminal violence with the support of combined groups of military and police that maintain a strong presence in the streets and have repeatedly intervened in prisons. This has initially allowed us to reduce the number of violent deaths from 28 to 10 a day so far this month.

Of the relatives of alias Fito, who arrived expelled from Argentina last week, the police commander, General César Zapara, highlighted that “They do not have a process against them, they are free people”but to those who “They are kept located and monitored.”