Rubio says US is designating 2 more gangs as foreign terrorist groups

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the United States is designating two Ecuadorian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations in the Trump administration’s latest move against cartels.

The announcement came as Rubio traveled to Ecuador to meet with its leaders in a trip to Latin America this week that has been overshadowed by a U.S. military strike against a similarly designated gang, Tren de Aragua, that has raised concerns in the region about whether the Trump administration will step up military activity to combat drug trafficking and illegal migration.

The two new designees, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, are Ecuadorian gangs blamed for much of the violence that began since the COVID-19 pandemic. The designation, Rubio said, brings “all sorts of options” for the U.S. government to work in conjunction with the government of Ecuador to crack down on these groups.

That includes the ability to kill them as well as take action against the properties and banking accounts in the U.S. for the group’s members and people with ties to the criminal organizations, Rubio said, adding it would also help with intelligence sharing.

Rubio called them “these vicious animals, these terrorists.”

“This time we’re not just going to hunt for drug dealers in the little fast boats and say ‘let’s try to arrest them,’” Rubio said at a news conference in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. “No, the president has said he wants to wage war on these groups because they’ve been waging war on us for 30 years and no one has responded.”

Rubio’s meetings in Quito on Thursday followed talks a day earlier with Mexican leaders that were overshadowed by the U.S. military strike on suspected Tren de Aragua drug runners in the southern Caribbean.

The Trump administration asserts that it targeted a Venezuelan drug-running ship crewed by members of Tren de Aragua. U.S. officials say the vessel’s cargo was intended for the United States and that the strike killed 11 people.

U.S. officials have yet to explain how the military determined that those aboard the vessel were Tren de Aragua members.

Rubio on Wednesday defended the action and offered no justification other than to say the boat posed an “immediate threat” to the U.S. and that Trump opted to “blow it up” rather than follow what had been standard procedure to stop and board, arrest the crew and seize any contraband on board.

The strike got a mixed reaction from leaders around Latin America, where the U.S. history of military intervention and gunboat diplomacy is still fresh. Many, like officials in Mexico, were careful not to outright condemn the attack but stressed the importance of protecting national sovereignty and warning that expanded U.S. military involvement might actually backfire.

Mexico Foreign Affairs Secretary Ramón de la Fuente, speaking to reporters alongside Rubio, emphasized his country’s preference for “nonintervention, peaceful solution of conflicts.”

Rubio on Thursday contested that U.S. actions were being directed more toward Venezuela, and not Mexico, because of its adversarial relation with the South American country.

“There’s no need to do that in many cases with friendly governments, because the friendly governments are going to help us,” Rubio told reporters. “They may do it themselves, and we’ll help them do it.”

Ecuador has its own issues with narcotics trafficking and also has been looked to by the Trump administration as a possible destination to deport non-Ecuadorian migrants from the United States. U.S. officials have said they would like to secure an agreement with Ecuador that would have it accept such deportees, but the status of negotiations with Quito was not clear.

Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, on Thursday thanked Rubio for the U.S. efforts to “actually eliminate any terrorist threat.” Before their meeting, Rubio had said on social media that the U.S. and Ecuador are “aligned as key partners on ending illegal immigration and combatting transnational crime and terrorism.”

The latest U.N. World Drug Report says various countries in South America, including Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, reported larger cocaine seizures in 2022 than in 2021, but it does not give Venezuela the outsize role that the White House has in recent months.

“The impact of increased cocaine trafficking has been felt in Ecuador in particular, which has seen a wave of lethal violence in recent years linked to both local and transnational crime groups, most notably from Mexico and the Balkan countries,” the report says.

Violence has skyrocketed in Ecuador since the COVID-19 pandemic, as drug traffickers expanded operations in the country and took advantage of the nation’s banana industry.

The South American country is the world’s largest exporter of bananas. Traffickers find maritime shipping containers filled with the fruit the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product.

In addition, cartels from Mexico, Colombia and the Balkans have settled in Ecuador because it uses the U.S. dollar and has weak laws and institutions, along with a network of long-established, ruthless gangs, including Los Choneros and Los Lobos, that are eager for work.

The work of Los Choneros, Los Lobos and other similar groups include contract killings, extortion operations and movement and sale of drugs. Authorities have blamed them for the unprecedented violence in the country as they fight over drug-trafficking routes to the Pacific and control of territory, including within prisons, where hundreds of inmates have been killed since 2021.

Ecuador also gained prominence in the global cocaine trade after political changes in Colombia last decade. Coca bush fields in Colombia have been moving closer to the border with Ecuador due to the breakup of criminal groups after the 2016 demobilization of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known by its Spanish acronym FARC.

Ecuador in July extradited to the U.S. the leader of Los Choneros, José Adolfo Macías Villamar. Nicknamed “Fito,” Macías escaped from an Ecuadorian prison last year and was recaptured in June, two months after a U.S. Attorney indicted him in New York City on charges he imported thousands of pounds of cocaine into the U.S.

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Lee and Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City.

Matthew Lee, Regina Garcia Cano And Jacquelyn Martin, The Associated Press