Ecuador gang leader wanted for murder of presidential candidate arrested

A leading figure in one of Ecuador's biggest drug-trafficking gangs has been arrested in Mexico City, officials say.

Ángel Esteban Aguilar Morales - better known as Lobo Menor, or Little Wolf - was wanted in connection with the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023, Ecuador's interior minister John Reimberg said.

He added that Aguilar had obtained papers using a fake Colombian identity.

Mexico's security minister Omar García Harfuch said the member of cartel Los Lobos had been the subject of an Interpol red notice and was "linked to drug trafficking, extortion, and homicide".

Colombian President Gustavo Petro called him "one of the world's most notorious assassins".

"This result represents a significant blow against transnational organised crime and confirms the effectiveness of trilateral co-operation between Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico in the fight against multi-crime networks," he said.

Villavicencio, a member of the country's national assembly and a former journalist who had campaigned against corruption, was shot dead as he was leaving a rally in the capital, Quito, in August 2023.

Five people linked to Los Lobos, including the leader of one of its cells, Carlos Edwin Angulo, were jailed for his murder a year later.

Prosecutors alleged that Angulo - widely known as The Invisible - ordered the hit from the Quito prison in which he is detained, a claim he has denied.

Aguilar is one of several Los Lobos lieutenants under the group's ultimate leader, Wilmer "Pipo" Chavarría Barré, who faked his own death to escape prison before being captured in Spain in 2025.

Aguilar was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2013 for the murder of the brother of Ecuador's former interior minister José Serrano.

Prosecutors allege Aguilar was among the men who ordered the hit on Villavicencio but was able to flee after being granted parole, according to Mexican newspaper El Universal.

At the time of his arrest, he had been identifying himself as Juan Carlos Montero Mestre, and was followed by Ecuadorean and Colombian police from the Colombian cities of Medellín and Itaguí over a period of two months, Ecuadorean news site Primicias reports.

Ecuador, one of the main conduits through which South American drugs are trafficked, has sought to align itself closer to the US under President Daniel Noboa, who has frequently used the military to crack down on crime.

The Trump administration - which has often cited combatting drug trafficking as its justification for military action in and around Latin America - declared Los Lobos a Foreign Terrorist Organisation last year, accusing it of "terrorising and inflicting brutal violence on the Ecuadorean people".

It is said to have deep connections to the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Mexico.

Ecuador's location - sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, the world's largest producers of cocaine - has turned it into a key transit country for the illicit drug.

Around 70% of the cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru is estimated to be shipped through Ecuador.