(Reuters) – The United States imposed sanctions on Ecuador’s Los Lobos crime gang and its leader on Thursday, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
Los Lobos, led by Wilmer Geovanny Chavarria Barre, known by his alias Pipo, has become Ecuador’s largest drug trafficking organization and significantly contributes to the violence gripping the country, the statement said.
The Ecuadorian authorities have joined the president in combating the increasing violence they blame on drug gangs Daniel Noboa the use of emergency declarations to send the army into the streets.
The violence made international headlines in January when gunmen stormed a television station during a live broadcast and a mass hostage-taking of prison guards took place.
The United States sanctioned another major Ecuadorian gang, Los Choneros, in February.
Los Lobos has thousands of members and started as a gang of hitmen working under Los Choneros, the Treasury Department statement said.
Los Lobos provides security to Mexico’s Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel along its cocaine smuggling routes and is accused of orchestrating the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio last year, the Treasury Department said.
(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb)
