Ecuadorian police said Thursday they had discovered three severed heads in Esmeraldas province, which lies near the border with Colombia in the northwest of the country and is under a state of emergency amid a spate of drug-related violence.
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“We know that those beheaded were part of a group of criminals organized from here in Esmeraldas,” Police General Fausto Buenaño told reporters.
The bullet-riddled heads were found wrapped in black sacks, and one of the victims was a teenager, the general said.
According to him, members of rival criminal gangs “are in the process of taking each other out”.
The impoverished province of Esmeraldas, which the government says has “the highest level of insecurity in the country”, was placed under a state of emergency by President Guillermo Lasso on March 3. There is a curfew between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.
Sitting between Colombia and Peru – the world’s top cocaine producers – Ecuador seized a record 210 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine, in 2021.
In 2022, around 200 tons were seized and the government declared war on the drug traffickers who control drug routes.