‘Los Choneros’ kingpin extradited to NYC after his prison break sparked riots, chaos in Ecuador

An Ecuadorean gang leader who twice escaped from Central American prisons is now locked up in the US and facing a federal drug and gun trafficking indictment, prosecutors said Monday.

Jose Adolfo “Fito” Macias Villamar, 45, the notorious leader of the violent “Los Choneros” gang, held so much clout in his native country that the Ecuadorean government had to declare a state of emergency last year after his most recent escape sparked nationwide riots and violence.

But Macias Villamar was recaptured and extradited to the US over the weekend and is now awaiting on a seven-count indictment in the Eastern District of New York, prosecutors said.

“José ‘Fito’ Macias thought he could traffic poison into our country, smuggle American weapons back to his killers, and further his criminal enterprise using chaos and bloodshed,” Robert Murphy, acting administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration said in a statement. “He was wrong.

“Today, the kingpin of Los Choneros faces justice on U.S. soil for his crimes,” Murphy said.

Los Choneros is “the most violent and powerful transnational criminal organization in Ecuador,” the US Attorneys Office said in a press release.

The gang was behind the assassinations of at lease one prominent political leader in Ecuador in 2023, and was part of a rival gang war behind bars that saw more than 115 people killed in 2021.

Macias Villamar oversaw the gang’s operations from Central America, including from inside Ecuadorean prison cells, according to the indictment.

Under his watch, Los Choneros operatives stocked up on weapons in the US — including AK 47s, assault rifles and hand grenades — between 2020 and 2025, sneaking the weapons into Ecuador, where they helped gangbangers control the gun and international drug trade.

In 2011, Macias Villamar was jailed in Ecuador, but managed to escape — and did so again in January 2024, when his prison break sparked nationwide unrest and violence.

Recaptured by Ecuadorean authorities, he was extradited over the weekend and is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment later on Monday, prosecutors said.

“The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control,” Eastern District US Attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement.

“This case demonstrates our Office’s commitment to identifying and targeting the leadership of such organizations, wherever they may be located, and bringing them to face justice here in the United States,” Nocella added.