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Crime & Scandal

Prosecutor gunned down as crime wave persists in Ecuador

Reuters
Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X
Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X

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A criminal prosecutor in Ecuador was killed by armed assailants on Friday along with his police escort, in the latest eruption of violent crime to shake the South American nation.

The attorney general’s office announced the death of Marcelo Vasconez and his guard in a post on social media, noting that both prosecutors and police were searching an area outside his office in the coastal city of Manta, located about 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of the country’s largest city Guayaquil.

Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X
Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X

The national police have been deployed to bring those responsible to justice, according to a separate post confirming the deaths.

Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X
Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X

According to local media reports, Vasconez served as part of the attorney general’s transnational organized crime unit.

His apparent assassination marks at least the ninth local prosecutor killed since 2019.

Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X
Police officers in Ecuador conduct a search during a traffic stop. PHOTO/@PoliciaEcuador/X

The targeted killings coincide with the growth of the country’s powerful organized crime groups, which President Daniel Noboa has sought to confront through stepped-up enforcement, proposed crime-fighting measures as well as emergency edicts since last year.



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