Five severed human heads were discovered hanging from ropes on a tourist beach in southwestern Ecuador on Sunday.
A threatening message was left alongside them, aimed at criminal extortionists, the Associated Press reported.
Police confirmed that the gruesome display was found at Puerto Lopez, a popular whale-watching destination in Manabi province. Images circulated on social media showed the heads tied to wooden posts planted in the sand.
Blood was visible at the scene. A wooden sign left beside the heads carried a stark warning to gang members demanding 'vaccine cards', the local term for protection payments extorted from fishermen.
'The town belongs to us. Keep robbing fishermen and demanding vaccine cards, we already have you identified,' the message read.
Latest Massacre in Wave of Violence
Authorities said the killings resulted from territorial disputes between criminal organisations battling for control of drug-trafficking routes along Ecuador's coastline.
A police report attributed the incident to a conflict between criminal groups. Drug-trafficking networks with links to transnational cartels are active in the area and have used fishermen and their small boats for illicit activities.
The same beach witnessed another brutal attack just two weeks earlier, when six people were killed in what officials described as gang-related violence. Three days after that massacre, six more people died in a separate attack in Manta, also located in Manabi province.
In December 2025, at least nine people, including a baby, were killed in Puerto Lopez during clashes between local criminal groups, CBS added.
2025 Becomes Ecuador's Deadliest Year
Between January and June 2025, Ecuador recorded a 47% increase in homicides compared to the same period in 2024. The nation averaged 25 murders per day during this period, making it the most violent six months in the country's history, according to the Inter-American Dialogue.
The violence continued through the rest of the year. Ecuador closed 2025 with more than 9,000 murders recorded, surpassing the previous record of 8,248 deaths set in 2023.
The homicide rate reached 52 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organised Crime. By comparison, the UK's murder rate stands at approximately 1.2 per 100,000. The United States averages around 6.3 per 100,000.
President Daniel Noboa has deployed military forces and declared states of emergency in nine of the country's 24 provinces, including Manabi. The state of emergency restricts certain civil rights and seeks to contain the spiral of violence, especially in coastal areas.
Police have intensified patrols and surveillance operations in Puerto Lopez following the recent spate of killings. However, two years of military intervention have failed to stem the bloodshed, the AP report read.
Drug Cartels Exploit Fishermen
Drug-trafficking networks linked to Colombian and Mexican cartels have increasingly used fishermen and their small boats to transport illicit shipments along Ecuador's coast.
Ecuador sits strategically between Colombia and Peru, two of the world's largest cocaine producers. This has made it a crucial transit hub for narcotics bound for international markets. Criminal organisations have waged brutal turf wars to control these lucrative trafficking routes.
The violence has intensified since 2021, when gang activity began escalating across the country. Coastal provinces have borne the brunt of the bloodshed, with criminal groups competing ruthlessly for territorial dominance.
A dispute for territory and control of drug-trafficking routes has triggered violent episodes across Manabi province. Local fishermen have found themselves caught in the crossfire.
The grisly warning left at Puerto Lopez appears to be part of an ongoing campaign of intimidation as rival factions battle for supremacy in the region's criminal underworld.
Ecuador has been engulfed in violence for more than four years after becoming a logistical centre for the storage and distribution of drugs. Narcotics enter mainly through the northern border with Colombia and the southern border with Peru.
