Ecuador and the United States continue to expand the tools available to confront transnational criminal organizations and the networks that sustain their operations within and beyond the country.
As authorities intensify actions against these organizations, new terrorist designations are strengthening the legal and financial tools available to target their resources and support networks. Among them are the U.S. designations of the Chone Killers as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in July and Los Tiguerones in September.
The expanding pressure was evident just one day after the September 9 designation of Los Tiguerones. On September 10, Colombian National Police, in coordination with Ecuador’s National Intelligence Center, captured Guido Fernando Rodríguez Vargas, alias Comandante 7, in Soacha, Colombia. Colombian authorities identified him as a high-value target for Ecuador and one of Los Tiguerones’ main transnational links between the two countries.
Authorities said Rodríguez helped administer illicit proceeds used to sustain the organization’s logistics and weapons capabilities in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and Nariño, Colombia, and linked him to a money laundering network involving proceeds from drug trafficking and extortion. He was wanted in Ecuador and was subject to an Interpol Red Notice for homicide and organized crime.
The two designations target distinct organizations but reflect the same effort to increase pressure on Ecuadorian criminal networks.
The Chone Killers emerged as a faction of Los Choneros and broke away from the organization in 2020. The U.S. Department of State says the group has carried out high-profile attacks and killings targeting civilians, law enforcement officers, and public officials.
Following the death of one of its leaders in Colombia in late 2024, five factions that had previously been part of the organization began competing for territory and illicit economies, Reuters reported. By February 2026, authorities had identified new subdivisions of the group, some of which had begun operating under different names, according to Ecuadorian newspaper Primicias.
Fragmentation complicates efforts to dismantle these organizations, as smaller groups can continue criminal activities, forge new alliances, or provide services to larger organizations. In Ecuador, these networks engage in activities including drug trafficking, extortion, contract killings, and arms trafficking.
International drug trafficking is a major criminal activity of both the Chone Killers and Los Tiguerones. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X that “Ecuadorian gangs help Mexican cartels transport and export illicit drugs to finance terrorism and criminal activity.”
The legal weight behind the designations
The FTO designations were made under the Immigration and Nationality Act and accompanied by the groups’ designations as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs). An FTO designation carries specific legal consequences: U.S. law prohibits providing material support or resources to organizations on the list and imposes immigration restrictions on certain members and representatives, according to the State Department.
The SDGT designations also trigger financial sanctions administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which can block property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction and restrict certain transactions involving designated individuals and entities.
“Under the U.S. legal framework, this gives the federal government the legal, budgetary, and economic resources to act against these organizations,” Javier Oliva Posadas, an academic at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, told Diálogo. Oliva Posadas said the measure also facilitates greater support for the Ecuadorian government from U.S. intelligence and security agencies.
Cutting off financing and capturing facilitators
Financial sanctions directly target the resources that sustain operations. Oliva Posadas said that “cutting off sources of financing reduces the ability to sustain certain terrorist activities.” Restrictions targeting money laundering and the freezing of accounts are effective tools against terrorism, he added.
U.S. authorities have applied these tools against the support networks of other designated Ecuadorian criminal organizations. On August 20, OFAC sanctioned 15 individuals and entities based in Ecuador and identified 10 vessels as blocked property for their involvement in a drug trafficking network linked to Los Choneros and Los Lobos. According to the Treasury Department, members of the network coordinated cocaine shipments, operated vessels, and supported the refueling of boats used to move drug shipments toward Mexico.
The action shows how authorities can direct pressure not only against an organization’s leaders but also against the individuals, businesses, and resources that sustain its operations.
A recent case directly involving the Chone Killers illustrates the importance of these supply functions. On August 9, Ecuador’s Security Bloc — comprising police, military personnel, and the National Intelligence Center — captured alias Samir in Santa Clara de Daule, Guayas province. Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo identified him as the Chone Killers’ largest supplier of weapons and explosives, Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo reported.
Oliva Posadas said individuals in such positions understand the organization’s inner workings and can help facilitate the replacement of a leader who has been killed or captured. “This is important to take into account because it is a model that is constantly being recycled in Ecuador,” he warned.
Pressure extends beyond Ecuador
The designations come amid increasingly close security cooperation between Ecuador and the United States, including information sharing, equipment, training, and support for actions against transnational organized crime.
That cooperation is also translating into operations targeting the capabilities that sustain other designated criminal organizations. On August 26, Ecuador’s National Police, in coordination with the Prosecutor General’s Office and with support from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), carried out operations Factoría and Jericó against structures linked to Los Choneros and Los Lobos. The operations included 36 raids, resulted in 43 apprehensions, and led to the seizure of approximately 2.5 tons of drugs.
The operations demonstrate how cooperation between Ecuadorian and U.S. institutions can be used to target the financial, logistical, and operational capabilities of criminal organizations operating through different structures.
Actions against the Chone Killers have also extended to Argentina. In August, the Argentine government designated the group as a terrorist organization and ordered its inclusion in the Public Registry of Persons and Entities Linked to Acts of Terrorism and Terrorist Financing (RePET), finding that it represents a real external threat to national security. The measure is intended to strengthen mechanisms to prevent, detect, and respond to terrorism and terrorist financing, while making it more difficult for foreign criminal organizations to expand in the country.
Oliva Posadas stressed that U.S. counterterrorism legislation provides additional resources for acting against these organizations and that measures adopted by other countries broaden the scope for action against networks operating across borders.
“The fight against organized crime has entered a new phase: There will no longer be borders that protect terrorists or safe havens for those who threaten the peace of our peoples,” Ecuadorian Interior Minister John Reimberg said. “International cooperation is our greatest strength. Impunity is over.”
Terrorist designations and sanctions expand the scope of actions against criminal organizations to include the money, weapons, logistics, and facilitators that sustain their operations. The capture of Comandante 7 illustrates the transnational dimension of that effort, while actions against Chone Killers facilitators show how authorities can target support networks even as criminal structures reorganize, forge new alliances, or begin operating under different names.
Intelligence and information sharing among countries further expands that reach by helping identify financial, logistical, and criminal connections that cross jurisdictions. Combined with investigations and operations in Ecuador, these tools enable authorities to target the different components that sustain criminal organizations beyond their visible structures.
