A convicted leader of one of the most powerful drug gangs in Ecuador has vanished from the prison where he was serving his sentence, and authorities are investigating whether he escaped like he did a decade ago from another facility. Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito” and leader of Los Choneros gang, was reported as missing from his cell on Sunday, and on Monday morning, authorities in the South American country had still not found him or offered an explanation for his disappearance. César Zapata, general commander of the national police, told the media on Sunday night that Macías had disappeared from his cell and that they were investigating. Ecuador’s prosecutors office tweeted on Sunday that it was investigating the case as a probable “prisoner’s escape”. Macías was convicted of drug trafficking, murder and organized crime. He was serving a 34-year sentence in La Regional prison at the port of Guayaquil, and he was scheduled to be transferred on Sunday to a maximum security facility in the same city. Los Choneros is one of the Ecuadorian gangs considered by authorities as responsible for a surge in violence that reached a new level last year with the assassination of the presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. The gang has links with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, according to authorities. Before his death, the politician said the crime faction had threatened him, but so far authorities have not directly accused Macías or his group of being behind Villavicencio’s murder. Days after Villavicencio’s killing, Macías was moved out of La Regional to the maximum security prison in the same large complex of detention facilities in Guayaquil, but he was returned to the same lighter security prison within less than a month without any explanation. In February 2013, “Fito” fled from a maximum security facility, but he was recaptured a few weeks later. Los Choneros and other similar groups linked to Mexican and Colombian cartels are fighting over drug trafficking routes and control of territory, including from within detention facilities, where at least 400 inmates have died since 2021, according to authorities. Experts and authorities have acknowledged that gang members practically rule from inside the prisons, and Macías is believed to have kept controlling his group from within the detention facility. President Daniel Noboa, an heir to a fortune built on the banana trade, took over in November saying his government’s main objective was to reduce violence.