14 people killed, with victims showing "signs of torture" in Ecuador

Ecuador on Monday reported two attacks that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded, with some of the victims showing signs of torture.

The South American nation is a point of departure for cocaine shipments to the United States and Europe, and a hub for some 20 criminal groups involved in extortion and contract killings.

The first attack occurred around 11 pm Sunday (0400 GMT) in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city and the capital of Guayas province.

As many as seven people got off motorcycles and pickup trucks and fired shots at a neighborhood soccer game, local police colonel Carlos Fuentes told reporters.

The attack, which was attributed to the so-called Freddy Kruger gang, left six dead and 17 injured, including three minors who were at the sporting event.

Police also reported finding eight bodies in the town of Buena Fe, located in the southwestern province of Los Rios.

The victims, four men and four women, had "signs of torture" with their hands tied together with duct tape and "their heads covered in black bags," according to a local police report.

Local media said the group were part of a larger group of 12 who had traveled to the area from the capital Quito. The other four members of the party, an older women and three girls, remain missing.

Ecuador recorded more than 4,600 homicides in the first half of the year, a 47% increase from the same period of 2024, data from the Ecuadoran Observatory of Organized Crime shows.

Once considered one of Latin America's safest nations, Ecuador has seen a dramatic surge in violence in recent years as its location between two of the world's largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, has made it a major transit hub for narcotics.

The country has recently been rocked by deadly prison attacks linked to drug gangs. Last month, officials said 17 people were killed in a riot in an Ecuadoran prison, with rampaging inmates beheading and maiming rivals.

Just days before that, 13 prisoners and a guard were reported killed in southwest Ecuador.  Officials said the dead inmates belonged to the rival Los Choneros and Los Lobos gangs, two of the biggest drug trafficking groups in Ecuador. The U.S. recently designated both gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.

José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias Fito, is  the boss of the Los Choneros gang, and he was recaptured in June this year, more than a year after escaping prison. He had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for involvement in organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.

In July, the Ecuadoran government extradited Fito to the U.S., where he pleaded not guilty to charges, including international cocaine distribution and smuggling firearms.

• Drug Cartels
• Cartel
• Ecuador