Getting an eagle or tiger tattooed on your skin in Ecuador puts your life at risk, as it can be a sign that you belong to one of the many gangs that are spreading across the country and have usurped these animal symbols.
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Los Lobos (Wolves), Las Aguilas (Eagles), Los Tiguerones (Tigers) and the powerful band of Choneros, whose emblem is the lion, are now sowing terror in this small country that was once considered a haven of peace between the two largest cocaine producers of the world: Colombia and Peru.
Wolves, lions, eagles or tigers are marked on house walls to indicate that an entire neighborhood belongs to a clan, and are tattooed with ink on the bodies of their members.
In the port city of Guayaquil, now the epicenter of drug trafficking and all gang violence, criminals and police pay particular attention to these signs of belonging.
“I always prefer to hide my tattoo under my clothes,” a young man who has a tiger tattooed on his back tells AFP on condition of anonymity. Not because he belongs to a gang, but because just a few years ago he loved the animal and its symbolism, without realizing that it could one day put his life in danger.
“It is so absurd that we are put in a box and stigmatized for this,” he complains as a gang member.
“Certain Death”
The tattoo artists themselves have been affected by the unrest and some “have been killed,” one of them told AFP. “Not because of their ties to gangs, but because someone found out that they were simply covering up a tattoo” or one day doing a tattoo for a rival, said the young man, who asked to remain anonymous because he once served a gang . “They contaminate art,” he complains today.
“I research social networks to find out who contacts me” to get a tattoo, explains Jean Paolo, another tattoo artist from Guayaquil. “In the face of danger, I literally have to act like an FBI member.”
Depending on the context, a tattoo can mean “certain death,” he confirms.
During a simple check, police and soldiers look for the smallest tattoo that could indicate gang membership. The same applies to new recruits who have no trace of it when they want to join the armed forces that want to protect themselves from infiltration.
Col. Roberto Santamaria, police chief of Nueva Prosperina, Guayaquil’s most violent neighborhood, says tattoos have become about identity and loyalty to gangs, as is the case in Central America with the notorious “Maras” (criminal gangs) and their MS-13 members Case or Barrio 18 is completely tattooed, sometimes even up to the face.
“Drug culture gives rise to legends and stories and is a way to recruit minors by making them believe that they are part of a structure,” he told AFP.
On his cell phone he shows pictures of men with animal tattoos on their skin, holding an AK47 machine gun.
“Each gang has its own peculiarities. Los Tiguerones, for example, is a tiger with a beret and stars that represent the hierarchy within the gang,” explains Mr. Santamaria.
In Ecuador’s violent prison system, where around 460 people have died in clashes between rival gangs since 2021 and victims have been found dismembered, beheaded or cremated, a simple tattoo is also synonymous with life or death.
The new convicts “identify themselves by the symbols tattooed on their bodies to avoid being put in a wing of another gang because they know they will die if they are taken there,” the police colonel says.