Ecuador on Sunday transferred José Adolfo Macías Villamar, the fugitive gang boss known as “Fito”, to U.S. custody, less than a month after his dramatic recapture in a coastal bunker. He appeared on Monday before a federal magistrate in Brooklyn and pleaded not guilty to seven counts of drug- and weapons-related crimes. Prosecutors allege he masterminded large-scale cocaine shipments and armed his operatives through illicit U.S. gun purchases. The indictment covers activity from at least 2020 to 2025 and links Los Choneros—Ecuador’s oldest criminal organisation—to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. U.S. authorities say the network moved tonnes of cocaine from South America through Central America and Mexico toward the United States and organised attacks on officials who impeded its trade. If convicted, Macías faces a minimum of ten years and up to several decades in prison, although Washington guaranteed Quito he would neither receive the death penalty nor a life sentence, a condition required by Ecuadorian law. Macías, 45, had been serving a 34-year term for murder and narcotrafficking when he broke out of Guayaquil’s Regional Prison on 7 January 2024. His escape unleashed riots and prompted President Daniel Noboa to declare an internal armed conflict with criminal gangs. After a 17-month manhunt and a US$1 million reward offer, army and police units found him on 25 June 2025 hiding in an underground bunker beneath a mansion near his hometown of Manta. The U.S. Department of Justice formally requested his extradition on 9 July, the first such petition since Ecuador reinstated extradition in a 2024 referendum. Macías accepted the transfer on 11 July; the National Court of Justice approved it on 18 July and security forces flew him out two days later. Noboa, who has made gang suppression a centrepiece of his presidency, hailed the hand-over as proof that “crime no longer has safe havens” in Ecuador.