Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias El Fito, escaped from jail in Ecuador more than a year ago and an international hunt for the notorious drug lord is continuing with a $1million reward for information
A one million dollar reward has now been put up for information to help find the leader of one of the most dangerous drug cartels in Latin America.
Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias El Fito, is the leader of the feared Los Choneros criminal gang in Ecuador and escaped prison in January of last year. He broke out during a wave of violence that swept the country and authorities in Ecuador appear to be no nearer to finding him.
El Fito is known to have close ties to cartels in other countries including Colombia and Mexico. Los Choneros came to prominence in Ecuador in the 1990s in the Manabi province and since then they have developed into an important supplier of cocaine from Colombia to other parts of Latin America and the United States.
Ecuador’s Ministry of the Interior has stated on X that it is offering the reward of $1million or £780,000 to anyone providing information about his whereabouts. People can disclose the information also anonymously. The search for El Fito has intensified in recent months with the help of international organisations, including Interpol – which has issued a red notification for his capture in 196 countries.
And it comes as Donald Trump is imposing a crackdown on the influence of cartels bringing drugs into the United States, where they have now been given the status of terrorists.
As well as drug trafficking, Los Choneros have also been involved in murders, extortion and the trafficking of arms while they have been in dispute with other gangs including Los Lobos and Los Tiguerones – leading to the recent crime wave in Ecuador.
El Fito became leader of Los Choneros in December, 2020, following the murder of Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias The Itch, who was shot dead in a department store following his release from prison.
But El Fito has a long list of crimes dating back to 2000 when he was detained for robbery. In 2011 he was sentenced to 34 years in jail for drug trafficking, organised crime and murder, but first managed to escape in 2013 from La Roca high security prison. He was recaptured a few months later in a secret underground room at his family’s home.
From then until his escape last year he was kept at the Regional prison, where he was still able to control organised crime inside and out of the prison. Footage at the time of his escape showed other prisoners with knives held to the throats of guards and telling authorities not to go after Fito or use the army against prisoners.
The government introduced a state of emergency taking away civil liberties and allowing the army to enter prisons but control was far from restored. There were car bombs, police kidnapped in the street and threats made to the government by the gangs. And President Noboa said that there was “a terrorist threat against the pillars of the sovereign state” around an hour after gunmen entered a television station in Guayaquil during a live transmission and threatened journalists.
One theory is that he has headed south via Peru to Bolivia and his family were detained in Argentina with his wife Inda Mariela Penarrieta and their children were found in the city of Cordoba in a covert operation. They went to Cordoba on January 5, last year, and rented a house in an exclusive area before being located.
Another theory is that Fito has gone through Colombia to Mexico with his links to the Sinaloa drugs cartel, but also he may have stopped in neighbouring Colombia with Los Choneros also having worked with the FARC military group. The boss of a wing of the Los Choneros, Junior Roldan, left the Guayaquil jail in February 2023 and went to Colombia before being found dead on May 6 in Antioquia with a bullet in his head.
