✅ Asesinato de candidato en Ecuador evidencia aumento de violencia generalizada

The Ecuadorian right-wing presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a former investigative congressman for corruption and journalist, was shot dead on Wednesday as he was leaving a rally in northern Quito.

The early elections in Ecuador are scheduled to take place in just 11 days, on August 20.

The independent candidate and usual critic of correism had denounced weeks before that he was a target of a criminal group linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, which he identified as Los Choneros. «I’m not afraid of them,» he said in a video circulated on the Internet. His usual slogan for the presidential campaign was «it’s time for the brave.» One of his promises was to «tackle» drug trafficking in his first year and a half of government.

Villavicencio’s murder is the first assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador, where violence stemming from organized crime, especially drug trafficking, has been more prominent in recent years. But the crime adds to a long list in a year that has seen an increase in generalized violence.

One month before Villavicencio’s murder, the mayor of the port city of Manta, Agustin Intriago, was shot six times while visiting the 15 de Septiembre neighborhood. Ariana Chancay, an athlete who had approached him for help, also died in the incident.

Surveys by Perfiles de Opinion and CEDATOS last December revealed that insecurity was the main concern for between 55% and 60% of Ecuadorians. In previous years, only between 6% and 15% were concerned about crime.

The insecurity situation coincided with a political crisis in May when Lasso used a constitutional figure known as «cross-death» to dissolve the Congress, which was investigating him for alleged corruption, and called for early elections.

In April, the national government declared as terrorists several criminal gangs, including the one known as Los Lobos, which claimed responsibility for Villavicencio’s murder in a video showing a group of armed individuals. According to the government, the gangs were responsible for a series of explosive attacks, kidnappings, extortions, and murders.

Los Lobos is considered the second most dangerous criminal gang in the country, according to the security and criminality research portal Insight Crime.

Los Lobos has an estimated 8,000 members on the streets and inside Ecuadorian prisons. It was born as an autonomous gang after the division of another crime-dedicated group known as Los Choneros.

Los Lobos is linked to the Mexican cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, and its members provide armed protection for drug shipments in the provinces of Guayaquil, Quito, and Quevedo.

According to Insight Crime, Los Lobos is involved in illegal mining and has participated in massacres in Ecuadorian prisons, where over 300 inmates died in 2021 alone.

Generalized Violence in Ecuador

Los Tiguerones tops the list of dangerous gangs in Ecuador, according to Insight Crime. Los Choneros, Fatales, Gánsteres, R7, Lagartos, and Chone Killers are others that were mentioned by Villavicencio in his speeches.

According to official reports, these gangs operate in the coastal provinces of Ecuador, through which drug shipments pass on their way to Europe and the United States.

That month was a clear example of the escalation of violence in the country: within the same week, three explosive devices were detonated in Guayaquil, a police officer and a woman were killed in a church in a town near Guayaquil, nine fishermen and traders were shot in Esmeraldas, and six inmates were found hanged in a prison in Guayaquil.

The Ecuadorian press reports daily on murders, attacks on businesses, robberies, kidnappings, and threats ordered by organized crime.

This week, a video went viral on social media and instant messaging groups showing two criminals assaulting a man who was walking with his six-year-old daughter on the sidewalk of a cooperative in northern Guayaquil. The man was hit on the head and shot in the left leg, after which his little girl started screaming in terror. The victim survived and was in stable condition, reported the newspaper El Universo.

General Wagner Bravo, the secretary of public security of the Ecuadorian government, said two weeks ago in an interview with the channel Ecuavisa that violence in the country is «institutionalized.»

«The country is really facing a very strong attack from organized crime, and we are confronting it,» he said.

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