Argentina ousts family of Ecuadorian fugitive drug lord "Fito"

As the manhunt for Ecuadorian drug lord Adolfo Macias, also known as “Fito,” continued, Argentina on Friday expelled the gangster’s wife and kids. This month, a terrifying wave of gang violence broke out in Ecuador following the leader of the notorious Los Choneros gang’s escape from a Guayaquil prison. President Daniel Noboa responded by declaring a “state of war.” Fito’s family members were apprehended in a posh neighborhood in the province of Cordoba, according to a statement made on Friday by Patricia Bullrich, the Argentine minister of security. She did not specify the basis for their detention. The family’s temporary residency permit had been revoked, according to Cordoba official Juan Pablo Quinteros, through a “migration resolution” that gave the authorities the authority “to detain and expel them from the country”. Interior Minister Guillermo Francos, speaking at a news conference with Quinteros and Bullrich, added: “Argentina will not be a den for criminals.” According to Bullrich, Fito’s wife Inda Mariela Penarrieta, 48, moved into the neighborhood on January 5 – days before her husband’s prison break – with three children aged four to 21 and other members of the gangster’s “clan.” On Friday the family was placed on an air force plane, Bullrich said, and Argentine police provided images of them boarding. Hours later, AFP journalists witnessed the plane land at Guayaquil airport. Ecuadoran authorities have not commented on the arrival or said whether any of the family members are wanted for a crime. - ‘We have a war’ - Noboa told Colombia’s W Radio on Friday police were searching for Fito “everywhere.” He said he had asked his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro “to conduct an intensive search” in that country as well. Ecuador, once considered a bastion of peace in Latin America, has been plunged into crisis by the rapid spread of transnational cartels that use its ports to ship drugs to the United States and Europe. In response to Fito’s escape, Noboa last week imposed a state of emergency and nightly curfew. Drug cartels reacted by threatening to execute civilians and security forces and taking hostage dozens of police and prison officials, who have since been released. They set off explosives, burned cars and, on January 9, stormed a television station and fired shots in an attack that was broadcast live. The prosecutor investigating that attack was shot dead Wednesday, and two suspects are in custody. “We have a war to fight, and a very battered nation to recover,” Noboa said Friday. Guayaquil police commander Victor Herrera warned of possible gang retaliation after the expulsion of Fito’s family from Argentina. “The national police is on alert” for any fallout," he said. (with inputs from AFP)