The Ecuadorian government has extradited the country’s most notorious drug trafficker, Adolfo Macías, known widely as “Fito”, to the United States, over a year after his dramatic escape from a high-security prison.
Macías, leader of the powerful Los Choneros gang, arrived in New York state on Sunday night, according to flight-tracking data. He is due to appear in a Brooklyn federal court on Monday to face charges of cocaine distribution, conspiracy, and firearms violations, including weapons smuggling. His lawyer, Alexei Schacht, has confirmed that Macías intends to plead not guilty.
A letter filed by the US Department of Justice on Sunday confirmed the arraignment. Ecuador’s national prison authority, SNAI, said Macías had been removed from his cell at a maximum-security facility in south-west Ecuador “for the purposes that correspond to the extradition process”.
Macías, a former taxi driver turned drug lord, had agreed to the extradition in a Quito courtroom last week. His transfer marks the first time Ecuador has extradited one of its nationals since the approval of a new law passed via referendum last year. President Daniel Noboa had pushed for the measure as part of a broader crackdown on organised crime and gang violence.
Ecuador, once a relative oasis of calm between the world’s two largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, has seen a dramatic escalation in violence in recent years. Criminal gangs, many with links to powerful foreign cartels, are engaged in brutal turf wars for control of the drug trade, using the country’s strategic ports to ship narcotics abroad.
Following Macías’s escape from prison in January 2024, President Noboa declared a state of internal armed conflict, ordering tanks and military forces into the streets to combat the escalating gang threat. While the move was welcomed by some as a firm stance on crime, it drew criticism from human rights organisations concerned about abuses and militarisation.
Macías’s criminal empire, Los Choneros, is believed to have ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan -the world’s largest cocaine exporting group, and organised criminal networks in the Balkans, according to the Ecuadorian Organised Crime Observatory.
After months on the run, Macías was captured on 25 June. He was discovered hiding in a secret bunker beneath floor tiles in a luxury residence in the coastal port of Manta, the stronghold of Los Choneros.
His escape had triggered widespread violence across the country, as well as a massive police and military manhunt. The Ecuadorian government even offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
In a CNN interview following the arrest, President Noboa stated: “The sooner, the better… We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law.”
According to Ecuador’s government, over 70% of the world’s cocaine passes through the country’s ports. In 2024 alone, Ecuador seized a record-breaking 294 tonnes of narcotics, the vast majority of it cocaine.
