assassins killed him in cold blood in the streets of Guayaquil

The host of Ecuadorian television programs, Efraín Ruales he was murdered while traveling by car along an avenue north of Guayaquil.

“The person killed is Efraín Ruales, he was shot several times; the forensic team will determine more details, ”said César Zapata, zone 8 commander of the Ecuadorian national police.

Zapata added that the crime would be a case of hitmen given the evidence that “inside the vehicle are all your personal belongings, so theft is excluded“.

Ruales was 36 years old, in addition to directing television programs, he was a model, actor and musician. His last job was to run the morning show live for Ecuavisa.

Message from the Ecuadorian President

“I ordered that the investigative process be carried out at the highest speed of the case, and no effort is spared to elucidate the heinous crime,” Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno wrote on Twitter.

Immediately, another post from Patricio Pazmiño, head of the Ecuadorian National Police, was added to the networks. Pazmiño wrote that “@PoliciaEcuador, through its specialized units, has deployed all investigative actions necessary to determine the facts of the regrettable death of Efraín Ruales”.

How was the murder of Efraín Ruales

The TV driver was pulled over on an avenue north of Guayaquil and “allegedly received several gunshot wounds while driving his car,” Ecuavisa reported on its website.

The television channel for which Ruales worked, in several programs and comedy series, also underlined that “our colleague was mobilized in his vehicle when He was pulled over a few blocks later from the gym he normally went to in the morning“.

Threats you received Efraín Ruales in 2020

Ruales, used to providing spiritual and motivating messages to his followers on social networks, Last July, he posted a video in which he said he had received threats.

“With a call, they say to me: be careful with the messages I sent on Sundays on corruption cases“, said the driver in reference to his opinion on the overvaluation and corruption of medical supplies in Ecuador, one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 in the region.

How the media reacted in Ecuador

The Ecuadorian Journalists Union mourned the murder of Ruales and called on the authorities for urgent justice so that this type of crime does not repeat itself.

The National Federation of Journalists of Ecuador (FENAPE), an organization that is an associate member of the International Federation of Journalists (FIP) and the Federation of Journalists of Latin America and the Caribbean (FEPALC), said in a statement that she “rejects the execrable murder of the presenter of Ecuavisa, Efraín Ruales”.

“We call on the national police, the government ministry and the attorney general’s office to act with the speed that allows us to find the intellectual and material perpetrators of this despicable murder which once again mourns the Ecuadorian social communicators”, indicates the FENAPE press release.

This organization of journalists assured that it will be “vigilant” of legal actions to find the authors of “this new act of violence”, “so that it does not remain in impunity like the murder of the journalist Fausto Valdiviezo, there is eight years, as well as the execution of the journalistic team of the newspaper El Comercio in 2018 ”.