Ecuador nabs wanted narco, president says crackdown bearing fruit

Ecuador on Monday announced the arrest of a wanted cocaine trafficker from neighboring Colombia, as President Daniel Noboa said his government's crackdown on gang violence was starting to bear fruit.

Carlos Arturo Landazuri Cortes, a "high-value target," was captured overnight after months of investigations and intelligence work, Ecuador's police chief Cesar Augusto Zapata said on X.

Landazuri, nicknamed "El Gringo," is a leader of the Oliver Sinisterra Front — a drug-dealing dissident group of Colombia's now-defunct FARC guerillas.

Apart from drug smuggling, he was suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of three Ecuadoran journalists in 2018 and in a bomb attack the same year that injured 28 police officers in the country's northwest.

Colombian police later said Zapata was being extradited back to Colombia.

The Colombian prosecutor's office lists the Oliver Sinisterra Front as key among "transnational organizations dedicated to cocaine trafficking" to the United States and Europe from the southwest of the country.

This part of Colombia borders Ecuador — a once peaceful nation whose ports have become key exit points for drugs, attracting powerful cartels and plunging it into violence.

Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency on Jan. 8 after a prominent drug lord, Jose Adolfo Macias, alias "Fito," escaped from one of Ecuador's notoriously violent prisons, mobilizing 22,000 uniformed officers to return order to the streets.

The gangs hit back by taking hostage scores of prison officials, since released, and carrying out attacks that have left about 20 people dead.

Authorities say they have carried out 2,800 arrests, killed five "terrorists" and recaptured 32 escaped prisoners since the...