Fernando Villavicencio

Shot on 9 August 2023 in Quito by a hit squad hours after a campaign event; the anti-corruption presidential candidate was killed weeks before the election.

Overview

Villavicencio, a journalist and assemblyman who had investigated state oil corruption and received death threats he attributed to gang bosses, was leaving a gymnasium rally in the north of Quito when the killers fired over a hundred rounds; his vehicle riddled and a bystander dead. Six Colombian men were arrested at the scene; other arrests followed, including a police officer. The Los Lobos gang leader and accused orderer was later killed in prison, and ten more suspects were charged in 2024 with cartel indictments in New York naming the financing. The murder, the first assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador history, detonated the security crisis of a country that has become a drug corridor, with the president declaring war on gangs and decreeing states of exception. His widow and movement carry his anti-corruption banner.