Ecuador declares war on criminal gangs after gunmen storm TV station

Ecuador has a history of fighting between drugs cartels

Ecuador has declared war on its criminal gangs after gunmen stormed a TV station during a live broadcast.

President Daniel Noboa, who took office late last year, said gangs should be "neutralised", in his toughest crackdown yet, after masked men broke into public television channel TC's live studio, injuring two employees. A total of 13 people were arrested following the incident, during which one gunman pointed a pump-action shotgun at the head of one of the members of staff during a 15-minute ordeal which was broadcast live.

A man with a pistol appeared in the middle of the public TV station’s live transmission, followed by a second man with a shotgun, then a third and more. With the show’s After The News title behind them, station employees were brought onto the set and ordered to lie down.

TOPSHOT - Handout released by Ecuador's National Police press office showing suspects detained by police officers inside the studio of public television station TC who took hostage several journalists and staff members.

The transmission was cut after about 15 minutes.

The country is two days into a 60-day state of emergency, which was declared on Monday after an imprisoned leader of a drug gang mysteriously vanished from his cell in the coastal city of Guayaquil.

Los Choneros gang leader Adolfo Macias, alias Fito, had been serving a 36-year sentence for murder, drug trafficking and other crimes. Mr Noboa has previously promised to eradicate violence and fighting between drugs cartels through his so-called Phoenix Plan, details of which he has not revealed to the public.

The state of emergency tasked police and armed forces with enforcing compliance on restrictions such as the rights to move freely, to assemble and allows police entry into homes without a court order.

However, the attack on TC Television elicited another decree, this time recognising the country possesses an armed, domestic conflict and identifying more than a dozen organisations as “terrorists and belligerent non-state actors”. These groups include the Choneros, Lobos, Tiguerones and Aguilas.

The decree also enabled the armed forces to carry out military operations “to neutralise the identified groups”, while observing international humanitarian law.

The recent surge in violence began in February 2021 with a massacre inside the country’s most violent prison, known as the Literol penitentiary.

It left at least 79 dead, and sparked a series of shocking episodes within Ecuadorian prisons. In September of the same year, the nation’s worst prison massacre saw 116 inmates killed in a single prison, with several of them beheaded, while a total 18 clashes inside prisons have killed more than 450 people.

According to authorities, disputes between gangs inside the prisons prompted the death in December of 2020 of a Los Choneros leader, Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias Rasquina, in an attempt to usurp his power.

This generated divisions among the local groups subsidiary to the gang, which are disputing control of territory to control drug distribution. Authorities say some of the gangs have ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Violence within the prison’s walls has spread to the streets, with rampant kidnapping, murder, robbery and extortion that has made the country among the most violent in the region. Last year was Ecuador’s bloodiest in on record, with more than 7,600 murders that marked a surge from 4,600 in the prior year.