Ecuador has launched a manhunt for an "extremely dangerous" narco leader who has vanished from a maximum security prison in the South American country beset by drug gang violence.
The leader of the powerful Los Choneros gang, Jose Adolfo Macias, alias "Fito", was found missing by authorities conducting a prison inspection Sunday.
Police reported the "non-presence" of Fito in his high-security cell in the port city of Guayaquil.
The 44-year-old, who is said to instill terror in his fellow inmates, is believed to have escaped just hours before police entered the penitentiary, according to presidency spokesman Roberto Izurieta said Monday.
"The full force of the State is being deployed to find this extremely dangerous individual," he told domestic TV.
The prosecutor's office said Monday it had opened an investigation into Fito's "presumed escape," while Izurieta said the prison system had failed and bemoaned "the level of infiltration" by criminal groups.
Fito had since 2011 been serving a 34-year sentence for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
This is his second prison escape -- the last was in 2013 when he was recaptured after three months.
In an operation involving thousands of security forces, Fito was transferred to a maximum security prison last August following the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
A week before his death, Villavicencio said he had received threats from Fito.
The candidate had drawn the ire of gangs and drug traffickers with his reputation for speaking out against the cartels.
Long a peaceful haven between top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has seen violence explode in recent years as enemy gangs with links to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.
Gang wars largely play out in the country's prisons, where criminal leaders such as Fito wield immense control.
The battles have left some 460 inmates dead since 2021, their bodies often found dismembered, decapitated or incinerated.
Izurieta said Fito -- who obtained a law degree in prison -- was a "criminal with extremely dangerous characteristics, whose activities have characteristics of terrorism."
"The search continues... He will be found, he must be found," said the spokesman.
Ecuadoran media reported security breaches in several prisons Monday, including detainees taking guards hostage, as images on social media purported to show hooded inmates threatening officials with knives as they pleaded for their lives.
AFP observed a large contingent of police enter a prison known as El Inca north of the capital Quito, with soldiers guarding the outside. Police said they regained control of the facility after five hours.
The SNAI prison authority has yet to comment on the unrest.
Ecuador's new President Daniel Noboa, who took office in November, has vowed to clamp down on gangs and insecurity.
On the campaign trail, he proposed creating a separate judicial system for the most serious crimes, militarizing the borders with Colombia and Peru, and jailing the most violent offenders on barges offshore.
Last week, he announced the construction of two new maximum security prisons similar to those built by El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, who has led a controversial crackdown on gangs credited with drastically reducing his country's murder rate.
