The Ecuadorian Police identifies the six arrested for the murder of Villavicencio as Colombians

The six arrested for the murder of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio are Colombian nationals, as well as the man who died at the scene, Ecuadorian police sources confirmed to EFE.

So far, the authorities have revealed that several men participated in the murder of Villavicencio, allegedly hitmen, who the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, in statements to the press this Thursday, identified as Andrés M., José L., Adey G. , Camilo R., Jules C.. and JohnR.

In addition, the Police also confirmed that the murder suspect who was injured by the crossing of bullets with security personnel, and who later died in an ambulance, is also a Colombian national.

Colombian mercenaries in Haiti

The Colombian Foreign Ministry, for its part, is still waiting for the official information on what happened, but it is not the first time that Colombian citizens have been involved in events of this nature in other countries, since Colombian mercenaries were also responsible for the assassination of the president. Haitian Jovenel Moise.

The assassination of Villavicencio, who promised to fight head-on against these gangs and who in recent weeks had denounced death threats against him, has shocked the country, in the midst of an electoral campaign that revolves almost exclusively around the crisis of security that plagues Ecuador.

Increase in murders in Ecuador

For a little over two years there has been an increase in murders at the hands of hitmen and killings by armed groups that the government links mainly to organized crime, which has gained strength in the coastal zone, where they use Ecuadorian ports as large shuttles for cocaine arriving in Europe and North America.

Villavicencio was one of the eight presidential candidates registered in these extraordinary elections, called for Sunday, August 20, after the Ecuadorian president, Guillermo Lasso, decreed the “cross death”, a constitutional mechanism with which he dissolved the National Assembly ( Parliament), with an opposition majority, when he was about to vote on his dismissal.