GUAYAQUIL: Ecuador transferred a powerful gang leader, accused of threatening a presidential candidate before he was slain, to a maximum security prison via a massive military and police operation on Saturday.

At dawn, around 4,000 heavily armed agents entered a prison in Guayaquil, south-western Ecuador, where Jose Adolfo Macias, the head of a powerful gang, has been held since 2011.

Images shared by security forces showed a bearded man, with his hands on his head, in some shots and lying on the floor with his arms tied in others.

On Saturday, Villavicencio’s party announced that his running mate, Christian Zurita, would take his place in the Aug 20 election.

Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso announced on social media site X that Macias had been transferred to La Roca, a 150-person maximum security prison that is part of the same penitentiary complex where the gang boss was already being held.

Ecuador has been under a state of emergency since the shock assassination on Wednesday of journalist-turned-politician Fernando Villavicencio.

The anti-corruption crusader — up to then second in polls — was gunned down as he left a campaign rally in the capital Quito.

A week before the 59-year-old was killed, he had said that macias was threatening him.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2023