\n<\/p>\n
A brother of Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord was killed on Sunday by gunmen who had disguised themselves as police officers. <\/p>\n
Police said David Mac\u00edas, 35, was a regional leader in Los Choneros, the powerful criminal gang which was until recently headed by his brother, Adolfo.<\/p>\n
Adolfo Mac\u00edas, also known by the alias “Fito”, is awaiting trial in the United States following his extradition from Ecuador last year.<\/p>\n
Los Choneros has been declared a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the US and is accused of being one of the crime groups behind Ecuador’s skyrocketing murder rate.<\/p>\n
Officials said David Mac\u00edas was killed in the early hours of Sunday local time.<\/p>\n
Witnesses said men dressed like police officers entered the home Mac\u00edas had rented in an upscale neighbourhood in the town of Ol\u00f3n, on Ecuador’s Pacific coast. <\/p>\n
The gunmen fled after the attack and so far there have been no arrests in connection with the case. <\/p>\n
It is not unusual for gang leaders to be targeted either by members of rival criminal organisations or even by members of their own group as part of internal battles for control. <\/p>\n
Last month, a local gang leader was shot dead by two teenage gunmen as he was leaving the international airport in Guayaquil. <\/p>\n
In that attack, the gunmen had hidden their weapons behind stuffed toys and a bouquet of flowers in order not to arouse suspicion. <\/p>\n
Police said David Mac\u00edas had pleaded guilty in 2018 to charges of criminal conspiracy.<\/p>\n
During his time behind bars, he reportedly recruited inmates for Los Choneros and managed to place the prison he was in firmly under the control of his gang.<\/p>\n
His killing is the latest blow to Los Choneros after the arrest last year of Adolfo Mac\u00edas, and that of another brother, Javier, last month in neighbouring Colombia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A brother of Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord was killed on Sunday by gunmen who had disguised themselves as police officers. Police said David Mac\u00edas, 35, was a regional leader in Los Choneros, the powerful criminal gang which was until recently headed by his brother, Adolfo. Adolfo Mac\u00edas, also known by the alias “Fito”, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11611],"tags":[4463,25625,8821,25626,2573,25627,3541,766],"class_list":["post-35820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spyballoon-global-news","tag-brother","tag-disguised","tag-drug","tag-ecuadorean","tag-kill","tag-lords","tag-men","tag-police"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/branded_news\/1200\/cpsprodpb\/59ca\/live\/0e6492f0-7ea2-11f1-b62f-ff1d7cedfbfe.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"SPYBALLOON GLOBAL NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"A brother of Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord was killed on Sunday by gunmen who had disguised themselves as police officers. Police said David Mac\u00edas, 35, was a regional leader in Los Choneros, the powerful criminal gang which was until recently headed by his brother, Adolfo. Adolfo Mac\u00edas, also known by the alias “Fito”, is…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35822,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35820\/revisions\/35822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}