Police in Ecuador say they’ve freed 49 individuals who had been kidnapped by a legal gang within the southern of the nation.
Two of the suspected kidnappers have been arrested in the course of the joint raid by the Ecuadorean safety forces in a mining space in Azuay province.
The highly effective Los Lobos (The Wolves) gang was behind the kidnapping, police mentioned.
Ecuador has seen a surge in gang violence in recent times as transnational legal organisations have expanded in to the Andean nation to benefit from its massive ports to export medicine.
Video released by police exhibits closely armed officers getting into what seems to be the tunnel of a mine.
Little info has up to now been launched about these freed.
An earlier publish on social media by the Ecuadorean armed forces acknowledged that there have been three girls among the many kidnap victims.
Dynamite, weapons and ammunition have been seized in the course of the raid, safety forces additionally mentioned.
Los Lobos is likely one of the strongest gangs in Ecuador with an estimated 8,000 members.
Initially a jail gang accused of instigating a few of Ecuador’s bloodiest jail riots, Los Lobos has expanded its operations and now wields appreciable energy outdoors the jail system.
Its members are concerned in contract killings, kidnappings for ransom and extortion.
The gang has additionally solid hyperlinks with the Mexican Jalisco New Technology cartel (CJNG), for which it smuggles cocaine from Colombia via Ecuador’s port cities to the US and Europe.
Fuelled by drug cash and armed by their Mexican allies, Los Lobos have change into a formidable enemy for the Ecuadorean state.
In January, following a very bloody wave of killings and assaults, President Daniel Noboa deployed the military to attempt to quell the violence.
Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest metropolis and its most necessary port, has up to now been the worst hit by gang-related violence however the raid in Azuay means that mining areas are actually seen as profitable targets by Los Lobos.