Drug trafficking, illegal gold mining, human trafficking and assassinations: Fabricio Colón Pico Suárez, 44, is presented as being one of the leaders of “Los Lobos” (the wolves), the main gang in a country in the grip of a increasing violence. The man who escaped from prison three months ago was arrested this Monday in Ecuador in Puerto Quito, a small town of 3,500 inhabitants located 150 km from the capital.
Thus, the one who is nicknamed “Pico” or “Salvaje” (savage) should again experience the same fate as some of the 8,000 Ecuadorian detainees of his cartel, according to a figure put forward by “InSight Crime”, a think tank specializing in crime in Latin America.
Drugs, a family affair
To read the Ecuadorian press, Fabricio grew up in crime. The independent media “ G.K. » reported At the time of his escape on January 9, the leader of the “Los Lobos” cartel had a total of 17 arrests, with a first mention in the record in 1997, for thefts on the country’s highways using police uniforms. In the same era, the daily newspaper The Hora recalled that Pico and his family formed the “Enjoyados” gang in the area of Santo Domingo until August 2003 and their arrests for drug trafficking.
Sentenced to eight years in prison with several members of his family, “Pico” resurfaced in 2012 where the Minister of the Interior at the time, José Serrano, identified him as part of another gang, “Los Endara”. , which put him on the wanted list. He was imprisoned again in March 2013, arrested on a farm in the northwest of the country, then suspected of being the leader of a gang specializing in the theft of armored vehicles and commercial premises, explains The Republic.
Released by a judge the following year, Fabricio Pico reappears in 2019 in a story of extortion from taxis in Quito, the capital. In 2023, he is suspected of leading drug trafficking in the capital and its surrounding areas, and is identified as a member of “Los Lobos”, a criminal organization which took advantage of the weakening of the rival group “Chonoros” to impose itself. . According to investigators, his gang has links to the Mexican cartel “Jalisco Nueva Generación” and branches in Caracas, Venezuela, continues The Republic.
Three mayors executed in two days
“Pico” clearly becomes one of the priority targets shortly after the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in August 2023, for which “Los Lobos” are suspected. Arrested for the first time in January, when the Ecuadorian government declared the country in “internal armed conflict” and deployed the army in the face of gang violence, he escaped. Since then, nearly fifteen politicians, mayors, local officials and even prosecutors have been assassinated. On Sunday, the same day as a referendum on security, the director of a prison in the west of the country was shot and killed. On Friday, a mayor was executed, the second in three days.
Fabricio Pico, recaptured this Monday and whose Ecuadorian police released the photo of his arrest, was also suspected of preparing the elimination of Attorney General Diana Salazar. This magistrate leads the legal offensive against the country’s criminal groups and several investigations have revealed their links with politicians, judges and senior civil servants. She is considered one of the most endangered people in the country.