A group of more than a dozen armed men disguised in uniforms similar to those of the National Police broke into a private residential complex in the beach town of Olón, in the coastal province of Santa Elena, early Sunday morning and executed David Gabriel Macías Villamar, 35, brother of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias Fito, the historic leader of Los Choneros, Ecuador’s oldest criminal organization. The murder intensifies the pressure on a structure that, with its leader extradited and several relatives imprisoned or convicted, faces the progressive dismantling of its core.
According to the preliminary report from the National Police, the attack occurred around 12:40 AM. The hitmen arrived at the residential complex in two vehicles and a motorcycle. At the access gate, they subdued the security guard and proceeded directly to the villa that Macías Villamar had rented days earlier. Once inside, they fired more than twenty shots. The victim died at the scene, and as of the early hours of the investigation, no arrests had been reported. The Dinased—National Directorate of Crimes against Life—and the Prosecutor’s Office have opened a formal investigation and are reviewing the complex’s security cameras to reconstruct the attackers’ route.
Police intelligence sources identified the victim, known by the alias David, as an alleged regional leader of Los Choneros in the province of Manabí and with supposed influence over the Jipijapa Deprivation of Liberty Center. Authorities clarified that these references correspond to preliminary lines of investigation and not to judicial resolutions. The Police also noted that Macías Villamar had a criminal record for illegal possession of weapons, concealment of stolen objects, and illicit association.
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The main hypothesis points to members of Los Lobos, the rival organization that has been disputing control of drug trafficking and dominance of Ecuadorian prisons with Los Choneros since 2021. That rivalry has generated the most serious episodes of violence in the country’s recent history, including the September 2023 riot at the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, where 123 inmates died. Authorities warn that the Olón crime could trigger reprisals and a new escalation between both structures.
José Adolfo Macías, known as “Fito”, leader of the criminal group Los Choneros, was extradited to the US (Ecuadorian Armed Forces).
The murder comes at a time of accumulated blows against the Macías Villamar family. Just three weeks earlier, on June 18, Ronald Javier Macías Villamar, alias Javi, was arrested in Bogotá through a joint operation between the Ecuadorian Security Bloc and Colombian authorities. Wanted by Interpol for homicide and money laundering, he was transferred to Ecuador and admitted to the El Encuentro prison, in the province of Santa Elena itself, where he awaits trial. Interior Minister John Reimberg announced that he will also be extradited to the United States, where his brother Fito is already being held awaiting trial for drug trafficking.
Ronald Javier is one of the seven relatives prosecuted in the Fito Money Laundering case. At the end of May 2026, six of them—including another brother and the romantic partner of the criminal leader—were sentenced to between seven and ten years in prison for laundering more than 25 million dollars. David Macías Villamar was not linked to that process.
Both Los Choneros —operational allies of the Sinaloa Cartel— and Los Lobos —linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel— were designated as terrorist organizations by Ecuador in January 2024 and by the United States in September 2025. The execution in a tourist residential area of Santa Elena, the same province where another of the brothers is being held in preventive detention, condenses into a single geographical setting the violence that follows criminal leadership and the judicial pressure that pursues them.
