Choneros vs Lobos: How are the two mega gangs with 20,000 prisoners causing bloodshed in Ecuador’s prisons

Ecuador saw the bloodiest prison massacre in its history and the fifth in the region. The Litoral Penitentiary, located in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second most populous city, was once again the site of an intense day of violence. The remainder of the riots left 116 dead and at least 50 injured.

The drama is experienced both inside and outside the penitentiary. Hundreds of police and even military tanks entered prison in an attempt to regain control. At the same time, ambulances and forensic vehicles march past the entrance to the prison, removing the lifeless bodies and transporting the injured to hospital. Outside the prison, hundreds of mothers, fathers, wives and other relatives await information on whether their loved ones are alive. The same is true outside the morgue where the parents of hundreds of inmates seek to know the fate of their children. There are parents who in this violent episode lost several of their children.

The new massacre in the penitentiary is one more event in the prison crisis in Ecuador. In 2021 alone, violence in prisons killed more than 200 people, according to official information. The tax authorities insist that there is a power struggle to run the prisons, however, some experts and even the Comprehensive Care System, the institution in charge of the prisons, agree that there is a “narco war“in the country. Mega gangs are said to be behind the atrocious acts that have taken place in the prisons.

The portal for investigative journalism Glass code revealed a report from Police Coordination of prison security. The document, as published by the media, states that more than 25,000 prisoners in the country belong to a criminal gang. This figure is equivalent to 64% of people held in prisons. Two bands are those with the largest number of members. The number of prisoners who make up criminal gangs is equivalent to the number of members that an army usually has. In Ecuador, the figure differs by less than half. The Armed Forces of Ecuador have more than 34,000 soldiers, barely 10,000 more than the prisoners who belong to the gangs.

The Choneros

Los Choneros, one of the oldest gangs in Ecuador and operating since the 90s, they have 12,000 members. Its members are in the prisons of the provinces of Cotopaxi, Santo Domingo, Manabí and Guayas, it is in the latter that the bloody events of this week took place.

According to Insightful crime, In the beginning, authorities have associated Los Choneros with “the armed wing of a Colombian drug cartel, with control of shipping routes across the Pacific to Mexico and the United States.”. However, since 2011, when the main gang leaders were arrested, Los Choneros has transferred.

It’s like that The Choneros have become one of the most violent prison gangs in the country. “This change in dynamic has also redirected the interest of the international group of drug traffickers towards micro-trafficking, contract killers, extortion and smuggling,” explains the specialized security portal.

Under the government of the former Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, the authorities used as a strategy, to regain control of the prison, the transfer of main gang leaders to other prisons from the country. The action, instead of returning control of the prison system to the state, allowed Los Choneros to develop as a prison gang and the creation of subgroups loyal to them in the prisons.

However, according to Insightful crime, Four former Los Choneros sub-structures: Los Chone Killers, Los Lobos, Los Pipos and Los Tiguerones, coordinated the attacks against the leaders of Los Choneros. This is because the group broke up after the murder of the alias Rasquiña, its leader.

Recent investigations link the Choneros gang to the Mexican Sinaloa cartel. Therefore, the fight of this gang is against the members of the criminal group Nueva Generación, which responds to the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel.

Wolves

In number of members, Los Lobos is Ecuador’s second largest mega-gang. It is estimated that 8,000 prisoners join the gang.

Wolves (8,000) with Los Pipos, Los Chone Killers (900 members) and Los Tiguerones (1,200 members), were grouped under the name of New generation. Them They are challenging in Los Choneros control of the channels through which drug trafficking sends drugs, including cocaine, to the United States and European countries.

The members of Los Lobos are imprisoned in the provinces of Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Santo Domingo, Guayas, Chimborazo, Azuay and El Oro.

Arturo Torres placeholder image, security journalist and founder of the Glass Code portal, explained to Infobae that Jalisco Nueva Generación “is an extremely violent cartel and the people who work with them from and outside prisons exercise this type of symbolism of cruelty”..

Gangs Against the State

Although authorities claim the riots respond to a struggle to control prisons, the evidence shows that the persecution is for millionaire drug trafficking routes.

According to the report on the international drug control strategy prepared by the United States Department of State, shipments of cocaine and heroin from Colombia and Peru “are trafficked over land through porous borders and by sea routes ”. Authorities estimate that 70% leave the country through the ports of Guayaquil. The drug is said to be hidden in containers. The same report ensures that the Ecuador is not a producer of illicit drugs, but it is an important channel for the distribution of drugs that are sent to the United States and Europe.

Torres noted that mega-gangs “have great economic power and a great penetration among those responsible for the prison system through corruption and bribes ”. This would be one of the reasons why the state lost control of the prisons.

Another cause would be the lack of prison guides. “It is impossible for 1,500 guides to control 40,000 prisonersTorres pointed out. In the province of Guayas, where the Litoral penitentiary is located, there are on average one officer for 240 inmates.

Overpopulation is another reason. The country’s prisons have a capacity of 30,000 inmates, however, the percentage of overcrowding this year is around 30%.. Torres indicated that this is due to the fact that under the government of former President Rafael Correa, 70 crimes punishable by prison were added, including drug trafficking: “More or less 40 to 50% of the detainees out of the 40,000 detainees are petty micro-traffickers,” Torres said. The latter transformed prisons, in Torres’ words, into “human caves”.

President Guillermo Lasso declared the state of emergency of the country’s prison system and pledged to mobilize around USD 75 million To generate a global change in the prisons, 25 million dollars will be allocated to the penitentiary of Litoral.

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