Ecuador is in the grip of a real security crisis. At the heart of the chaos, during which drug gangs have already killed 10 people, there is a name. That of Adolfo Macia, alias “Fito”. But why does this name come up? Who is that man ? 20 minutes takes stock for you.
Why is his name making headlines?
Adolfo Macia is the leader of the Choneros, a gang of around 8,000 men. However, he fled on Sunday from Guayaquil prison, in the southwest of the country. After the escape of the country’s most wanted criminal, several mutinies and hostage-taking of guards affected various prisons, relayed by frightening videos broadcast on social networks showing the captives threatened by the knives of masked inmates. On Tuesday, new videos showed the execution of at least two guards, by shooting and hanging. The prison administration reported 139 members of its staff being held hostage in five prisons across the country, without commenting on the videos.
Who is “Fito”?
Thin beard, tight mouth and dark eyes, Adolfo Macias is a 44-year-old drug trafficker. The man, also pictured with long shaggy hair and a prominent beard during a recent prison transfer, had been serving a 34-year prison sentence since 2011 for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder. “Fito” had already escaped from a high-security prison in 2013 but was recaptured after three months.
The gang leader runs Los Choneros, which appeared in the 1990s in the coastal province of Manabi (southwest), strategic for the export of cocaine to the United States and Europe. Little is known about “Fito”, other than his humble past as a taxi driver and his capacity for nuisance, prompting the Ecuadorian government to describe him as a “criminal with extremely dangerous characteristics”.
The name “Fito” has made headlines in recent months after the assassination in early August of one of the main candidates in the presidential election: Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist and parliamentarian. Shot dead by a Colombian hitman, he had reported death threats from the leader of the Choneros shortly before his execution.
What do we know about his time in prison?
In the Guayaquil penitentiary center area, where murals to his glory are displayed, drawings of weapons, dollars and lions, he was also the leader. Videos show him partying inside the prison with musicians and pyrotechnic devices. Behind the high walls where the prison administration does not always lay down the law, he even recorded a video clip on a “narcorroccido” (popular song in honor of drug traffickers) to his glory: “El corrido del Leon”.
He appears with a large hat on his head greeting and laughing with four inmates in the prison courtyard, stroking a fighting cock, to a tune sung in particular by his daughter, known as Queen Michelle. “Fito” exercised “significant internal control over the prison”, underlined the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in a report in 2022.
She stressed that Adolfo Macias, as well as Junior Roldan, another Los Choneros leader killed last year in Colombia, benefited from “differentiated and preferential treatment from the authorities” in prison. Known to be very charismatic, “Fito” studied law behind bars until obtaining his lawyer’s degree.
How did he rise to the head of the Los Choneros gang?
In the world of “Fito”, the saying applies: “The king is dead, long live the king”. His rise to the head of the gang is due to the successive deaths of previous leaders. It was accompanied by the fragmentation of the gang which, until recently, was made up of a myriad of small gangs joined together. Recent leadership changes in Los Choneros “have led to infighting within the group and its subgroups,” according to the Insight Crime research center. The Tiguerones and the Chone Killers thus broke away and became powerful rivals.
Los Choneros have established links with powerful Colombian (Clan del Golfo) and Mexican (Sinaloa Cartel) criminal organizations, but also with networks in the Balkans, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. On social networks, Los Choneros present themselves as benefactors, a sort of Robin Hood, with video clips praising drug trafficking. Online, they threaten journalists and, to the rhythms of urban music, issue warnings to other rival gangs. “Choneros, we are lions. With Uncle Fito controlling the neighborhood, we’re the bosses,” says one of the many songs on their JF Music Entertainment YouTube channel.