Assassinations of prosecutors in Latin America: a “criminal tactic” in the region

Threats and assassinations of prosecutors as a form of intimidation towards justice processes is a practice that is gaining strength in the region.

Four crimes committed in 2022 Ecuador and other similar crimes in the region warn about a way of acting that often involves transnational gangs.

While crimes and threats against judges, lawyers, social activists, politicians, and police are frequent in Latin American countries, 2022 is revealed particularly against prosecutors specializing in organized crime.

In Ecuador alone and since 2019, as consigned by Insight Crime, at least 45 judges have received threats and intimidations in the form of letters, funeral bouquets, dead animals, messages, and phone calls.

The organization warns that this type of persecution “is another example of how criminal groups are copying the extreme tactics of their peers across the region. The attacks are far from isolated.

In Ecuador, four murders in 2022 highlight the violence against the judicial system: in August, the judge of the Lago Agrio Multicompetent Unit (northeastern Ecuador), Nelson Patricio Yánez Paredes, was murdered, and in May, August, and September, prosecutors Luz Marina Delgado, Federico Estrella and Edgar Escobar were executed, respectively.

Crimes of this type were also committed in Honduras, and in Colombia, the murder of Paraguayan prosecutor Marcelo Pecci gained international notoriety.

EDGAR ESCOBAR

The most recent case that shook the region was that of Ecuadorian prosecutor Edgar Escobar, 43. The lawyer was murdered on Monday, September 19, in front of the Attorney General’s Office building in the southwestern city of Guayaquil.

Escobar was shot in broad daylight as he left the provincial Prosecutor’s Office building. The professional worked in the People and Guarantees Unit of Guayas, investigating cases of drug trafficking, murders, and femicides.

According to the local press, the prosecutor was in charge of the attack registered on August 14 in the Cristo de Consuelo sector, southwest of the city, where five people died, and at least 16 were injured.

For the crime, the Ecuadorian Justice requested preventive imprisonment for two young people: one was transferred to the Penitenciaría del Litoral, while another, a minor, was transferred to the Centro de Adolescentes Infractores de Guayaquil (Guayaquil Adolescent Offenders Center).

If found guilty, after due process, they could serve up to 26 years of imprisonment for the crime of contract killing.

FEDERICO ESTRELLA

On August 15, 2022, prosecutor Federico Estrella was murdered in Ecuador after an attack in Babahoyo, in the province of Los Ríos, Ecuador, when he arrived home after working at a local university.

Unknown assailants intercepted the prosecutor on a motorcycle while driving his vehicle. Estrella was shot five or six times and was taken to the General Hospital, which confirmed his death that same night.

Although the authorities did not indicate the motive for the murder, Estrella investigated several violent deaths in the city.

The crime took place one day after the explosives attack in the Cristo del Consuelo neighborhood in Guayaquil, the reason for which the Ecuadorian president, Guillermo Lasso, had decreed a State of Exception in Guayaquil, which also included the cities of Samborondón and Daule, as a way to control the increase in violence.

LUZ MARINA DELGADO

On May 25, prosecutor Luz Marina Delgado and her assistant, lawyer Jefferson Mendoza were murdered by hired killers in the city of Manta, province of Manabí.

The lawyers were traveling in a vehicle when they were pursued by unknown persons carrying firearms. After trying to escape, the car lost control and crashed into a house, and the attackers hit them.

Delgado and Jeferson lost their lives on the spot and were taken to the city’s forensic center.

According to Insight Crime, the prosecutor was in charge of several cases involving violent deaths in the country, including investigations involving the involvement of a powerful drug trafficker, Washington Prado Alava, also known as “Gerald” and “the Ecuadorian Pablo Escobar.

Delgado was also known to have brought charges against active duty military personnel who had more than a ton of cocaine seized in a raid at the Manta air base.

According to the country’s police authorities, the crime was perpetrated by hitmen of Venezuelan and Colombian nationality who arrived in the city 15 days before the murder.

The act was previously coordinated with local gangs that provided lodging and transportation to the assassins.

For the moment, the intellectual authors of the crime are unknown.

MARCELO PECCI

In May, the murder of Paraguayan organized crime prosecutor Marcelo Pecci in Colombia sparked concerns about organized crime coordination in the region.

Hitmen executed Pecci on May 10 while he was in the Colombian Caribbean resort of Baru enjoying his honeymoon with his wife, Paraguayan journalist Claudia Aguilera.

Two men arrived on jet skis at the beach where the prosecutor was resting and shot him, causing his death.

Pecci, one of the best-known prosecutors in the country, was dedicated to the fight and prosecution of drug trafficking, organized crime, and money laundering networks.

Among the media cases in his hands was the murder of the daughter of the governor of the department of Amambay, 22-year-old Kaline Reionoso de Oliveira, and the operation ‘A Ultranza Py’, which led to the arrest of some thirty people and the seizure of more than US$100 million in assets from organized crime.

The investigation into Pecci’s crime led to the arrest of five people involved: Wender Still Scoth Carrillo, a Venezuelan citizen who allegedly shot at the prosecutor; Eiverson Zabaleta, who acted as transporter; María Isabel Londoño and Cristian Camilo Monsalve, mother and son, together with Francisco Correa Galeano, who was the only one who did not accept the charges.

The detention control hearing was declared reserved after a judge denounced threats from one of the accused.

KAREN ALMENDARES

The 39-year-old prosecutor, who worked in the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Environment, was murdered by unknown persons in the municipality of Nacaome, department of Valle (southern Honduras), which borders El Salvador.

On May 27, the woman was shot when she returned from the gym and was about to open the gate of her home in the El Chaguite neighborhood.

So far, the police have not provided details about the motive of the crime against the Honduran environmental prosecutor.

With information from Sputnik