The United States designates the wolves and choneros as terrorists in Ecuador

The United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, announced Thursday in Quito that his country appointed the Ecuadorian criminal gangs the wolves and choneros as terrorist groups, in line with the offensive that Washington heads against organized crime in Latin America.

These are the two largest and most powerful criminal gangs in Ecuador, to which the government of President Daniel Noboa, with which Rubio met in the Ecuadorian capital, already declared as terrorists in early 2024 along with other groups causing an unprecedented escalation of violence in the Andean country.

“Today we are going to designate the wolves and the Choneros as terrorist organizations,” Rubio announced during a press conference with Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Gabriela Sommerfeld, after a meeting with Noboa at the Carondelet Palace, headquarters of the Ecuadorian Executive.

“They are narcoterrorist,” said Rubio, who recalled that in Ecuador these groups are not only dedicated to drug trafficking but also illegal mining.

The maximum representative of American diplomacy, which added that Washington is considering the designation of other Ecuadorian groups as terrorist organizationsHe said that the new denomination that EU grants from today to the wolves and the choneros will allow Donald Trump’s government to stop the networks that finance both groups through the banking system, something that said that it has already been successfully implemented against Haitian bands.

“Potentially lethal operations”

Rubio also stressed that the new designation will allow to share intelligence at the bilateral level “that can be used in potentially lethal operations” by the “host country” against these two organizations, which Washington considers that they have transnational links with the Mexican posters of Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación.

The Secretary of State announced that Washington will provide funds worth $ 13.5 million to help Ecuador’s government in the fight against organized crime.

He also pointed out that another game of six million dollars has been approved for the acquisition of state -of -the -art drones for the Ecuadorian Naval Force.

Rubio also highlighted the importance of the security forces of both countries carrying out joint training against criminal gangs to “face a threat that we have in common.”

SANCTIONS PREVIOUS TO THE CHONEROS

Previously, the Trump government had already applied economic sanctions to the Choneros and specifically to its leader, drug trafficker José Adolfo Macías Villamar, aka Fito, who was recently extradited from Ecuador to face drug trafficking charges in the United States.

Fito became the first Ecuadorian extradited to the United States since the Andean country again allowed its citizens to be delivered to US justice, after approved by referendum a reform in the Constitution.

This drug trafficker had become one of the great objectives of the administration of Noboa, after the most wanted offender in the country became, when he was running for the second time in prison when he served a sentence imposed in 2011 for drug trafficking, organized crime and murder.

New Treaty for Extraditions on the table

Precisely, Sommerfeld anticipated that the meeting also talked about modernizing the extradition treaty between the United States and Ecuador, which has an age of 150 years and barely had a modification 90 years ago.

In that sense, Rubio himself assured that both parties agree on the need to modernize the extradition agreement.

The Government of Ecuador, which has intensified the fight against organized crime and argues that the country remains in a situation of “internal armed conflict” against criminal gangs, has in turn aligned with Washington when it comes to declaring the transnational band of Aragua (TDA) and the poster of Los Soles as terrorist organizations.

Rubio’s trip arrives at a time marked by the recent attack on a boat, which left Venezuela and that according to Washington transported a drug cargo, made by the large military contingent that EU has deployed in the south of the Caribbean.

This operation has further shot the tension with Caracas, which accuses Washington of trying to force the overthrow of the Government of Nicolás Maduro.