Sopuruchi Onwuka, with agency reports

Battalions of some 4000 soldiers and policemen were drafted to enter the Ecuadorian prison just to relocate one man: a powerful and notorious gang leader who had threatened a presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, who was later murdered after an election rally Wednesday.

The brigade of troops was after the leader of the notorious Los Choneros gang, Jose Adolfo Macias, popularly called Fito, who allegedly runs large criminal enterprise from prison where he is still serving 34 year term for drug deals and multiple murders.

Journalist and anti-corruption crusader, Fernando Villavicencio, who was the candidate of the Construye party, was shot three times in the head just days after complaining to authorities that Fito had threatened to break him if he continued with his anti corruption and anti crime mantra in his election campaigns.

The size of law enforcement agents drafted into the arrest signifies the power of the gang leader and the dread that surrounds him even in prison.

Ecuador has been under a state of emergency after the shock assassination Wednesday and subsequent deployment of thousands of soldiers and police in a dawn operation to move Fito to a maximum security jail.

President Guillermo Lasso has blamed the murder on organized crime, and Villavicencio had complained of receiving death threats from Fito who runs the powerful “Los Choneros” criminal group from Prison 8 in Guayaquil in southwestern Ecuador.

“Fito” was sentenced to 34 years in prison for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.

Images of the operation published by President Lasso on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, show a big bearded Fito being handled by security guards along with several dozen other inmates.

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

Mr Villavicencio told a local program that an “emissary” of the gang leader had contacted him and warned “that if I continue… mentioning Los Choneros, they are going to break me.”

Mr Villavicencio, a journalist, had angered gangs and drug traffickers for his investigations.

Mr Villavicencio’s campaign focused on corruption and drugs. He was one of the only candidates to allege links between organized crime and Ecuadorian government officials.

The day before his assassination, he complained to the Public Prosecutor’s Office about alleged irregularities in oil contracts negotiated during former president Rafael Correa’s administration which had cost the country US $9 billion.

His death has shocked a nation that has largely escaped the decades of drug-gang violence, cartel wars and corruption that has blighted many of its neighbours. Crime has however shot up in recent years, fuelled by the growth of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.

On Saturday, his Construye party announced his running mate, Andrea Gonzalez as its presidential candidate in Mr Villavicencio’s place.

Ms Gonzalez’s career has largely focussed on environmental issues, and the party said she would “guarantee the legacy” of Mr Villavicencio.

Meanwhile, Mr Villavicencio’s widow Veronica Sarauz said she held the state responsible for her husband’s death, and said she was unhappy Ms Gonzalez had been named as her husband’s replacement to contest the election.

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso said Fito had been moved to La Roca, a 150-person maximum security prison that is part of the same complex.

Six Colombians have been arrested in Villavicencio’s murder, while a seventh was killed in a shootout with his bodyguards. Authorities haven’t said who hired and paid the hitmen.

Prisons have become the center of operations for drug trafficking in Ecuador.

More than 430 inmates have died violently since 2021, dozens of them dismembered and incinerated amid disputes between rival gangs.