Bogota Colombia — a person who is wanted in colombia and ecuador Ecuadorian presidential candidate murdered Fernando Villavicencio was arrested in Quito, Mexico in 2023 and transferred to Colombia, authorities said Wednesday.
Ecuadorian citizen Angel Esteban Aguilar Morales arrived in Bogota on Wednesday, where he was stopped by Colombian migration officials at El Dorado airport. No details were immediately provided about his immigration status or whether he had been formally extradited.
Aguilar, known as “Lobo Menor”, is one of the alleged leaders of the Ecuadorian criminal gang “Los Lobos” and one of the country’s most wanted fugitives, subject to an Interpol Red Notice – a global alert used to locate fugitives worldwide.
Mexican officials said Aguilar was identified by authorities as soon as he entered the country, so he was placed under real-time surveillance. Subsequently, intelligence provided by ColombiaAuthorities said they received information that helped them trace his location to Mexico City.
The arrest in Mexico – which authorities say was carried out without the “use of violence” – resulted in Aguilar being placed in the custody of the National Migration Institute to determine his legal status within the country, security officials said, without specifying whether he was deported.
“The individual was attempting to avoid immigration controls by using false identification as a Colombian citizen,” the Colombian migration agency said in a statement.
In April 2024, Mexico breaks diplomatic relations with Ecuador Following the military attack on the Mexican Embassy in Quito. The operation targeted corruption suspect former Vice President George Glass, who had been seeking asylum there since late 2023.
Representatives of Colombia’s foreign ministry and Colombia’s migration agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to Colombian police, Aguilar had allegedly entered Mexico from Medellín, Colombia, using a forged passport with “the express purpose of strengthening criminal networks in the region”.
at x, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro Police cooperation between Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico was highlighted and described as “a significant blow against transnational organized crime”.
In February, Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office presented new evidence seeking to formally link three individuals, including Aguilar, to the Villavicencio case. These individuals allegedly played a logistical and operational role in the killing on August 9, 2023, when the then presidential candidate was leaving a political rally in the northern area of the capital.
In addition to the Villavicencio case, police indicated that “Lobo Menor” allegedly has ties to the Mexican cartel and Néstor Gregorio Vera, known as Iván Mordisco – leader of a dissident faction of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerrilla group whose members did not comply. peace agreement Signed with the Government of Colombia in 2016.
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