Massacre of 19 in El Empalme is called a ‘cleansing operation’ by the Los Choneros gang

Police investigators say they are not sure how many of the 19 people killed Sunday night in an El Empalme bar were specifically targeted by the Los Choneros gang. “The attackers were going after Los Lobos affiliates in a territorial dispute but some of the deceased were collateral victims,” police said in an official statement. Among the dead was a 12-year-old boy caught in the crossfire.

Police arrived shortly after the Sunday night attack at a bar in Empalme.

Óscar Valencia, El Empalme police chief, said at least 10 attackers arrived in two trucks and began shooting indiscriminately at customers in the La Clínica cantina. “They attacked with pistols and rifles and also shot two people outside the premises.” He said. “It did not appear they were shooting at particular individuals.”

According to prosecutor Jaime Cervantes, the massacre was an attempted “cleansing operation” to stop the expansion of the Los Lobos gang in the northern section of Guayas Province. “The area is a strategic corridor for moving cocaine between Los Ríos Province packaging facilities to the coast near Manta,” he said. “It has been controlled for years by Los Choneros but Los Lobos is attempting to take it over to connect their base at Quevedo to the Manabí coast.”

Cervantes says the drug shipments in Los Ríos and northern Guayas are not destined for shipping containers at the ports in Guayaquil and Manta. “The cocaine from the Quevedo preparation farms go to Manta and fishing communities in Manabí where they are loaded onto fishing vessels, small cargo vessels and submersible craft,” he says. “From there, they go to Central America where they are offloaded for shipment to the U.S. and Europe.”

Cervantes adds: “You do not hear as much about these operations because the quantities are smaller than those shipped from the ports,” he says, adding, “but they are still substantial and lucrative enough to kill for.”

Following the Sunday shootings, police are searching for cocaine storage facilities in Empalme, which they call a “warehouse canton” for traffickers.

An unnamed police officer said that the killings were carried out by Los Águilas, a special unit of Los Choneros that is trained to kill. “Since the beginning of the year, we believe Los Águilas is responsible for at least 12 murders near Empalme,” he said. “Some of the bodies were beheaded and mutilated and had notes on them warning Los Lobos to stay away.”