5 human heads had been discovered held on show at a vacationer seaside in Ecuador on Sunday, police stated, because the nation feels from a wave of gang violence.
Pictures on social media confirmed 5 heads tied with ropes on two wood posts on the seaside in Puerto Lopez, a well-liked whale watching vacation spot within the nation’s southwest.
Beside them, a wood board bore a message threatening gang members who extort safety funds identified domestically as “vaccine playing cards”.
“The city belongs to us. Maintain robbing fishermen and demanding vaccine playing cards, we already have you ever recognized,” it learn.
On the identical seaside in December, not less than 9 folks, together with a child, had been killed in violence that authorities blamed on clashes between native gangs.
Ecuador ended 2025 as its most violent 12 months on file, with a murder price of 52 per 100,000 inhabitants, in accordance with the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime.
President Daniel Noboa has pledged to combat legal organizations which have expanded their operations in Ecuadorian territory in reference to worldwide drug cartels. However two years of army exercise have didn’t stem the bloodshed.
Since 2021, Ecuador has skilled rising legal violence by gangs working in coordination with Colombian and Mexican cartels concerned in drug trafficking.
Strategically situated between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, it has develop into a significant transit hub for narcotics.
