530 organised crime aliases in Ecuador: Los Lobos dominate arrests since 2024
ElComercio.com compiled 530 arrests of organised crime aliases in Ecuador between January 2024 and September 2026. Los Lobos increased from 17% to 44% of annual detentions.
Los Lobos lead arrests whilst Los Choneros lose ground, according to database of 530 aliases
'Chapulín', 'El Gordo', 'Topo', 'Gato', 'Pipo'. These nicknames appear almost daily in statements from Ecuador's National Police and Armed Forces. According to elcomercio.com, behind each one there is an arrest and a criminal structure. The outlet compiled a database of 530 detentions of organised crime aliases—in Ecuador and abroad—between January 2024 and September 2026. The records show a map that transforms year by year.
Los Lobos consolidate their presence
The rise of Los Lobos is the most striking finding in the database. In 2024 they accounted for 21 of 121 recorded arrests, equivalent to 17%. In 2025, they increased to 41 of 150, or 27%. By 2026 they totalled 115 of 259 arrests, or 44% of the annual total.
The National Police supported this trend with figures of their own: in 2025 they reported 151 arrests of medium-value targets, of which 68, or 45%, were members of Los Lobos.
Los Choneros, by contrast, travelled the opposite path. They went from 36 arrests in 2025—24% of the year—to 21 in 2026, barely 8%. The database, however, does not measure the size of each organisation: a structure can accumulate more arrests because law enforcement pursues it with greater intensity or because it publicises more of its operations.
Chiefs and recidivism
Of the 530 arrests, 105 correspond to high-value targets or individuals the authorities identified as ringleaders, leaders or chiefs. Los Choneros account for 25 records in that category; Los Lobos, 24. The proportion reveals a structural difference: one in three aliases arrested from Los Choneros is listed as a chief, whereas with Los Lobos the ratio is one in seven.
In 2026, 11 of the 21 arrests of Los Choneros correspond to commanders. Among them are Javi, brother of Fito, detained in Bogotá, and Churrón, arrested in Guayaquil.
The case of Rolando Federico Gómez Quinde, alias Fede, condenses two patterns from the database. Police arrested him on 30 January 2025 in La Aurora, in Daule, and identified him as a chief of Los Águilas, the armed wing of Los Choneros. He escaped from the Penitenciaría del Litoral on 20 June 2025. Four months later, on 2 October, Colombian police detained him in Medellín; he was deported to Ecuador and transferred to La Roca. In total, seven people appear twice in the database because they were released, escaped or were recaptured.
Geography of arrests
Guayas accounts for 140 of the 530 detentions. It is followed by Esmeraldas, Pichincha, Los Ríos, El Oro and Manabí. Each organisation has its own territorial pattern: Los Lobos accumulate more arrests in Pichincha than in any other province, whilst Los Choneros concentrate in Manabí. Another 50 arrests lack a specific province or correspond to operations carried out in multiple provinces simultaneously.
Arrests abroad increase each year. Colombia accounts for 13 of the 23 arrests outside the country. Fede, Javi and Gato Negro, second in command of Los Tiguerones, were captured there. Peru accounts for four arrests, Spain three, and there are cases in Panama, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. Lobo Menor, prosecuted for the murder of legislator Fernando Villavicencio, was captured in Mexico. Pipo, identified as the top chief of Los Lobos, was detained in Spain under a false identity.
New operational categories
Official vocabulary also changed. In 2025, police used the category medium-value target; in 2026, that designation appears less frequently. In its place emerges the figure of individual of relevant penal interest—recorded in 13 arrests in 2026—and prioritised criminal target. The high-value target category remains constant: 9 arrests in 2024, 18 in 2025 and 18 in 2026. In most official statements, authorities do not assign any specific category to the detained aliases.
Shared aliases, distinct structures
An alias does not identify anyone by itself. In the database, the nickname Junior corresponds to individuals linked to Los Lobos, Los Choneros and Los Tiguerones. El Gordo appears in eight records from six different structures. This is why the database records the name or initials that each authority publishes.
The number of identified structures also increased: from 17 different groups in 2024 to 26 in 2026. The increase, however, can be explained in part by the larger volume of records in 2026, which doubles that of previous years.
Methodology and limitations
El Comercio reviewed statements from the National Police, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and the Presidency. It only included individuals the authorities linked to a terrorist organisation, armed group or organised crime structure. Teenagers were not included.
The database is not a census. In 2025 alone, police reported 151 arrests of medium-value targets, more than the database contains for that year. Moreover, five individuals were already in prison when they were included in some operation—including Palanqueta, chief of Los Lobos, prosecuted in Operation Gran Fénix 17 in March 2025—so they appear in the search tool but are not counted among the 530 arrests.
El Comercio requested from the Ministry of the Interior, through the Organic Law of Transparency and Access to Public Information (LOTAIP), the official list of arrests from 2024 to 2026. The response will allow the database to be cross-checked and the completeness of available public information to be evaluated.
An arrest does not equal a conviction.
Source: Google News EC — Crime