Ecuador foils attack on maximum security prison

QuitoAn attack using a drone equipped with explosives targeting a maximum security prison in the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil (southwest) was thwarted on Thursday, reported the so-called Security Block, made up of the Police and Armed Forces to fight drug trafficking.

“The action of the Security Block prevented an attack that was intended to be carried out at the Guayas No. 3 Deprivation of Liberty Center, known as La Roca, with the aim of disabling this center,” the agency said in a statement, without reporting any victims.

An intervention by police, military and prison guards “a few hours ago (…) identified and thwarted the action of a drone with explosives that was flying over the prison,” he added.

La Roca is part of a large penitentiary complex in Guayaquil and has capacity for around one hundred prisoners.

Former Vice President Jorge Glas is located there. He was arrested in April when police raided the Mexican embassy in Quito, where he was seeking asylum. The incident led to the breakdown of relations between the two nations.

The Security Bloc said it was evaluating “the best course of action: controlled explosion or on-site dismantling” of the drone with explosives, without specifying whether the aircraft was shot down while flying overhead.

In September 2023, the public forces detonated in a controlled manner a drone loaded with explosives that landed on La Roca.

Ecuador’s prisons, which have become centers of criminal operations, have been under military control since January, when President Daniel Noboa declared the country in internal armed conflict in the face of an onslaught by drug traffickers.

“We will confront each and every one of their constant attempts to regain control of the penitentiary system and the country,” the Security Bloc said in a message addressed to the “mafias” in the statement issued on Thursday.

The Ecuadorian Adolfo Macías, alias Issuecriminal boss of The Choneros who escaped and remains missing.

Macías had threatened to kill presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was assassinated by Colombian hitmen in August 2023 as he was leaving a rally in northern Quito.

The Choneros They have a force of about 8,000 men, according to independent research centers. Allied with Mexican and Colombian cartels, this group competes with twenty other organizations for the drug trafficking business.

In 2021, there was already a drone attack with explosives against the large penitentiary complex in Guayaquil, which has been the scene of bloody massacres due to clashes between drug gangs that have left more than 460 dead since 2021.