Quito, Ecuador – Ecuador on Sunday extradited to the United States, the leader of a violent Ecuadorian gang that depended on the successes, bribes and military weapons to do business.
José Adolfo Macías Villamar, whose nickname is “Fito”, escaped a prison in Ecuador last year and was recaptured at the end of June. In April, an American prosecutor accused him in New York City for charges that imported thousands of cocaine pounds to the United States.
Macías “was withdrawn from the Roca detention Center in the custody of the National Police and the Armed Forces for the appropriate procedures in the context of an extradition process,” said Ecuador’s government agency responsible for supervising prisons, SNAI, in a message sent to journalists.
The details of the transfer were not specified.
A photograph released by Snai showed Macías with a shirt, shorts, a bulletproof vest and a helmet. Several police officers were watching him in an unleashed place.
The Ecuadorian will appear on Monday before the Federal Court of Brooklyn “where he will declare himself innocent,” said Macías’s lawyer Alexei Schacht, Associated Press by email. After that, he will be stopped in a prison yet to be determined, added Schacht.
The extradition decision occurred after the United States sent a document to Ecuador that offered guarantees for the respect of the rights of the 45 -year criminal leader.
Since 2020, Macías has directed “Los Choneros”, a criminal organization that emerged in the 1990s. The gang used people to buy firearms and ammunition in the United States and pass them from contraband to Ecuador, according to the accusation of April. Cocaine would flow to the United States with the help of Mexican posters. Together, the groups controlled the key cocaine traffic routes through Ecuador, violently pointing to the forces of the order, politicians, lawyers and civilians who interposed on the road.
Macías escaped from a Guayaquil prison where he was serving a 34 -year sentence for drug trafficking, organized crimes and murders. He was recaptured a year and a half later on the central coast of the country.
Macías has cultivated a state of worship between gang companions and the public in their country of origin. While he was behind bars in 2023, he released a video aimed at “The Ecuadorian People” while it was flanked by armed men. He also threw parties in prison, where he had access to everything, from liquor to roosters for rooster fighting.
Macías is the first Ecuadorian to be extradited to the United States of Ecuador, the prison authorities said. Two other Ecuadorian drug traffickers have been previously delivered to the United States, but from Colombia, where they were arrested.
