The Ecuadoran government has extradited the notorious drug trafficker Adolfo Macías to the US, more than a year after he escaped from a high-security prison.
The flight transporting Macías, also known as “Fito”, landed in New York state on Sunday night, according to a tracking site.
The US Attorney’s Office filed charges in April against Macías, the head of Los Choneros gang, on suspicion of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms violations, including weapons smuggling.
A letter filed by the US Department of Justice on Sunday said Macías was due to appear in Brooklyn’s federal court on Monday “for an arraignment on the superseding indictment in this case”. His lawyer, Alexei Schacht, told news agencies he would plead not guilty.
Macías was removed from custody at a maximum-security prison in south-west Ecuador on Sunday “for the purposes that correspond to the extradition process”, a spokesperson for the national prison authority, SNAI, told reporters.
Macías, a former taxi driver, agreed in a Quito court last week to be extradited to the US to face the charges.
He is the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since a new measure was written into law last year, after a referendum in which President Daniel Noboa sought approval for moves to boost his crackdown on criminal gangs.
Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters, Colombia and Peru, has experienced a rise in violence in recent years as gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.
Soon after Macías escaped from prison in January 2024, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of internal armed conflict and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralise” the gangs. The move has been criticised by human rights organisations.
Macías’s Los Choneros has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan – the world’s largest cocaine exporter – and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.
The crime boss’s escape from prison prompted widespread violence and a large military and police recapture operation, including government posters offering $1m for information leading to his arrest.
On 25 June, Macías was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, the centre of Los Choneros operations.
In an interview with CNN at the time, Noboa said Macías would be extradited, “the sooner, the better … We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law.”
More than 70% of cocaine produced in the world passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data. In 2024, the country seized a record 294 tonnes of drugs, mostly cocaine.
