DOJ seeks extradition of Ecuador's top drug trafficker, Fito Macías
The Los Choneros gang leader is charged with seven counts in the United States, which could lead to life imprisonment.
Adolfo Macías, alias "Fito."
Washington on Tuesday requested the extradition of José Adolfo "Fito" Macías, Ecuador's top drug trafficker, captured there two weeks ago after escaping from prison.
Fito escaped from prison, where he was serving a 34-year sentence, at the beginning of last year. After a year and a half of searching, the leader of the Los Choneros criminal gang was found near his native city of Manta, a fishing port that serves as a stronghold for his criminal group.
In April, American prosecutors charged him with seven counts, including cocaine and arms trafficking. Ecuador's National Supreme Court of Justice (CNJ) reported in recent hours that it had received the "formal extradition request." "The passive extradition process will be processed in accordance with Ecuadorian law," it added.
If the extradition is approved, Fito would become the first Ecuadorian to be extradited following the approval of sending criminals abroad proposed by President Daniel Noboa and approved in a referendum in 2024.
Ecuadorian Interior Minister John Reimberg highlighted that new "legal framework" that allowed the extradition request, as well as "the good relationship of this government with the United States." "Let's finish what we started, even saying: bon voyage Fito."
Who is Fito?
The government of President Daniel Noboa then released images of his face with the caption "WANTED" and offered $1 million for information leading to his whereabouts.
Before the escape, Fito was the boss of his prison. The prison was adorned with images that exalted his own figure, weapons, dollars and lions.
Fito exercised "significant internal control of the penitentiary center," the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said in a 2022 report made after a meeting with the kingpin.
The drug lord graduated as a lawyer in prison, where he was serving a 34-year sentence for weapons possession, drug trafficking, organized crime and murder.
Los Choneros, who first dedicated themselves to common crime with assaults on the high seas, achieved links with Colombian and then Mexican drug traffickers. Currently, they have links to the Sinaloa cartels, the Gulf Clan and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime.
The Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense estimates that the gang has a presence in 10 of Ecuador's 24 provinces.
Charges in the U.S.
The United States is seeking the 45-year-old Ecuadorian for cocaine trafficking, the use of firearms for his illegal operations and fraudulent purchase and trafficking of weapons, a total of seven charges.
"By leading the Los Choneros’ network of assassins and drug and weapon traffickers and importing potentially lethal quantities of cocaine into the United States, the defendant has caused great harm to his own country and the United States, which was the destination for the vast majority of Los Choneros’ cocaine shipments," U.S. Attorney John J. Durham said in filing the charges last year.
The prosecution claims that most of the drugs trafficked by Los Choneros, in collaboration with the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, ended up on American streets. He also had people in the United States at his service who bought weapons and ammunition and then smuggled them south to Ecuador.
Given the charges filed, he could be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years to a maximum of life in prison.
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