A notorious South American drug lord who escaped prison twice and even recorded a music video while in Ecuadorian custody has been hauled to Brooklyn to face international drug trafficking and firearm charges.
José Adolfo Macías Villamar, 45, also known as “Fito,” leads Los Choneros, a transnational criminal organization based in Ecuador, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn allege. He was extradited to New York Sunday night.
“His reach was far and wide,” assistant U.S. Attorney Chand Warren Edwards-Balfour said at his arraignment Monday. “The defendant directed murders. He threatened politicians, lawyers and civilians.”
Los Choneros worked with Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel, to transport cocaine from suppliers in Colombia through Ecuador to Mexico and into the U.S., federal prosecutors allege. The drug ring relied on heavily-armed “sicarios,” or hitmen, as well as bribery and corruption, to keep the flow of guns and to protect their turf.
Macías Villamar, like the Sinaloa’s infamous leader El Chapo, escaped jail twice and lived in luxury despite his fugitive status, according to the feds.
In 2011, he was sentenced to 34 years behind bars in Ecuador for drug trafficking and organized crime charges, but just two years later, he and other members of Los Choneros “immobilized” 14 prison guards to escape, according to the feds.
He was recaptured four months later, but managed to rule over the La Regional prison in Ecuador like a lord, bribing officials to keep hold of his power, prosecutors said. He ordered the execution of a senior member of Los Choneros and his brother after learning they were selling guns on their own, the feds allege.
Videos show parties in the prison with fireworks and mariachi band music, and Macias Villamar even went as far as recording a music video with his daughter, partially recorded in the prison, that mocked the Ecuadorian government, the feds said. The video, titled “El Corrido de Leon,” Spanish for “The Ballad of the Lion,” has more than 1 million views on YouTube.
In the video, Marcus Villamar sports a thick, scraggly beard and wears a maroon button-down shirt and oversized striped hat as he admires a painting of a lion and its cubs, and strokes a rooster.
In January 2024, he escaped a second time, just before his planned transfer to a maximum-security prison. That time, he disappeared from his cell, sparking chaos, riots and a 60-day state of emergency in Ecuador.
Ecuadorian Special Forces arrested him 18 months later, on June 25, in a bunker under a swanky luxury villa compound in the port city of Manta.
“The defendant was able to live rather comfortably while he was out,” Edwards-Balfour said. His villa had a pool, a gym, appliances, and a game room, and his underground bunker had a bed, a refrigerator and air conditioning, according to the feds.
A federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted him on July 27, and he was arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court Monday, where Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon ordered him held without bail.
His lawyer, Alexei Schacht, asked that he get continued medical care, because he has bullet fragments embedded in his body from a shooting from years ago.
He returns to court Sept. 19.
“As alleged, the defendant served for years as the principal leader of Los Choneros, a notoriously violent transnational criminal organization, and was a ruthless and infamous drug and firearms trafficker,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Monday. “The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control.”
