The gangsters who stormed an Ecuadorian TV station with guns and grenades before taking journalists hostage have been humbled after being detained by police.
Thirteen of the thugs who cockily brandished bombs on live television as they intimated civilians were arrested yesterday.
Ecuador erupted into a ‘civil war’ with cartel thugs yesterday after the president ordered the army onto the streets and declared a state of ‘internal armed conflict’.
Crazed criminals rampaged through the South American country’s cities after President Daniel Noboa, 36, ordered a state of emergency.
Hooded gangsters seized the state TV news studio yesterday, while a university was attacked and jail guards reportedly executed by prisoners.
The gangsters who stormed an Ecuadorian TV station with guns and grenades before taking journalists hostage have been humbled after being detained by police
They had their hands cuffed behind their backs and sat barefoot while armed police watched on
The thugs who cockily brandished bombs on live television as they intimated civilians were arrested yesterday
There were seen with their heads bowed as a soldier pointed towards them today
Men with their faces covered entered the set of the TC Television network in the port city of Guayaquil and shouted that they had bombs. Noises similar to gunshots could be heard in the background
Ecuador has been rocked by a series of attacks including explosions and the abduction of several police officers after the government imposed a state of emergency in the wake of the escape of a powerful gang leader from prison.
Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macías, 44, the leader of Los Choneros gang, was found missing from his cell in a low security prison on the same day he was supposed to be transferred to a maximum security facility, on Sunday.
A manhunt is underway for Macías and Los Lobos leader Fabricio Colon Pico, who also escaped prison on Tuesday since his arrest last Friday for alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate Ecuador’s attorney general.
The National Police presents the detainees who broke into the facilities of the public television channel
Ecuador declared a state of emergency Monday after one of the country’s most dangerous gang leaders disappeared from his prison cell
Police in Ecuador arrested several armed men who broke into the set of a public television channel Tuesday during a live broadcast and forced the staff to lie and sit on the floor
Members of the Armed Forces frisk a man during an operation to protect civil security in Quito, on January 10
Members of the Armed Forces frisk a man during a security operation in Quito today
On Tuesday, gunshots rang out on live TV as men armed with bombs and grenades burst into a studio shortly after gangsters vowed a ‘war’ against the president’s plans to reclaim control from ‘narcoterrorists.’
Attackers carrying rifles and grenades stormed the studio of TC television in the port city of Guayaquil, western Ecuador, as a woman was heard amid gunshots pleading: ‘Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot.’
In the attack on Tuesday evening, intruders forced terrified TV crew onto the ground and a person could be heard screaming in apparent pain as the studio lights went off but the live broadcast continued for at least 15 minutes.
An Ecuadorian police squad runs into the premises of Ecuador’s TC television channel after gunmen burst into the state-owned television studio live on air on January 9
Ecuadorian soldiers take security measures with a military armored vehicle on roads after Ecuador president declares ‘internal armed conflict’
Armoured trucks have been seen on the streets of Ecuador’s capital city of Quito
A TC employee said in a WhatsApp message: ‘Please, they came in to kill us.
‘God don’t let this happen.
‘The criminals are on air.’
Journalists on screen were reportedly heard screaming ‘they want to kill us all’.
One of the hooded men who attacked the set reportedly said: ‘We are on the air so that they know that we do not play with the mafia.’
President Daniel Noboa, 36, (pictured) has ordered the army onto the streets and declared a state of ‘internal armed conflict’
Armed men broke into the set of a public television channel in Ecuador as it broadcast live and threatened people as the country reels from a series of attacks after the government imposed a state of emergency in the wake of the apparent escape of a powerful gang leader from prison
Men were seen brandishing what appeared to be bombs and grenades (pictured)
After about 30 minutes of chaos, police officers were seen entering the studio while someone then called out that they ‘have a wounded companion.’
All the gunmen who broke into the studio were arrested, a police commander said.
Alina Manrique, the head of news for TC Television, said she was in the control room across from the studio when the masked men entered the building.
One of the men pointed a gun at her head and told her to get on the floor, she said.
Some of the assailants ran from the studio and tried to hide elsewhere in the building when they realised they were surrounded by police, she added.
‘I am still in shock,’ Ms Manrique told the Associated Press in a phone interview. ‘Everything has collapsed.
‘All I know is that it’s time to leave this country, and go very far away.’
Shortly after the gunmen stormed the TV station, President Noboa issued another decree designating 20 drug trafficking gangs operating in the country as terrorist groups and authorising Ecuador’s military to ‘neutralise’ the groups – within the bounds of international humanitarian law.
The TV studio was stormed in the port city of Guayaquil in western Ecuador
Ecuador’s national police chief announced a short time later that authorities had arrested all the masked intruders.
Cesar Zapata told the TV channel Teleamazonas that officers had seized the guns and explosives.
He did not say how many people were arrested.
‘This is an act that should be considered as a terrorist act,’ Mr Zapata added.
President Noboa decreed a national state of emergency for 60 days on Monday, allowing the authorities to suspend rights and mobilize the military in places like prisons.
The government also imposed a curfew from 11pm to 5am.
Noboa had vowed on Monday to ‘not negotiate with terrorists nor rest until we return peace to all Ecuadorans.’
He added that his government had decided to confront crime.
Noboa was elected in October on a pledge to fight rampant drug-related crime and violence in the South American country – once considered a bastion of peace, but now a key stop on the US- and Europe-bound cocaine trade.
He vowed Monday to bring the fight to the cartels after a powerful gang leader, Adolfo Macias, known as ‘Fito,’ escaped from prison the previous day.
States of emergency were widely used by Noboa’s predecessor, Guillermo Lasso, as a way to confront the wave of violence that has affected the country
Ecuador has been beset with violence from brutal bloodthirsty gangs who are battling for control in spiralling turf wars that see gun massacres and beheadings.