The Tiguerones, the Ecuadorian criminal group, was added to the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) this month. But although the designations expand the US government’s powers to target the group, its members, and its support networks, the Tiguerones are far from a cohesive organization.
In Ecuador, the Tiguerones have been linked to terrorist attacks as well as drug trafficking, extortion, and robbery. Ecuador’s police accused the group of being behind a car bomb outside a police station in the port city of Guayaquil, a crucial transshipment point for drugs heading to Europe, in May 2022. And members of the group stormed a television station in the same city during a live broadcast in January 2024. The incident made headlines around the world and prompted President Daniel Noboa to declare an internal armed conflict and designate 22 criminal groups, including the Tiguerones, terrorist organizations, more than two years before the US government did so.
SEE ALSO: Los Tiguerones Criminal Profile
But according to our investigations, the group has undergone significant fragmentation in recent years.
In Guayaquil, the Tiguerones have split into two rival factions, Los Fénix and Los Igualitos, which have aligned themselves with other criminal groups, including the Choneros and the Lobos. In Esmeraldas, in northwestern Ecuador, one of the Tiguerones’ main strongholds, the group has lost territory to the Lobos.
This fragmentation began with the arrest of William Joffre AlcÃvar Bautista, alias “Negro Willy” or “Willy,” the alleged leader of the Tiguerones, in Spain in October 2024. Although Ecuador requested his extradition, the Spanish government made it conditional on guarantees for his safety. In December 2025, Willy was released after the Ecuadorian government allegedly failed to provide those guarantees within the established deadline. He has remained in Spain, and his absence appears to have weakened the group’s chain of command in Ecuador and created power vacuums.
The Tiguerones emerged as an armed wing of the Choneros, one of Ecuador’s main criminal groups, in the late 2010s. At the time, Willy, who worked as a prison guard, allied himself with Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña” or “JL,” the leader of the Choneros, to expand the organization’s presence into parts of Esmeraldas and Guayaquil.
Rasquiña’s murder in 2020 marked the Tiguerones’ split from the Choneros and the beginning of their rise in Ecuador’s criminal landscape.
Since then, the group has established itself as a major logistics operator in Ecuador for transnational drug trafficking networks, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). The Choneros, Lobos, and Chone Killers have also been designated as FTOs by the United States in Ecuador.
To learn more about the Tiguerones, read our full, updated profile here.
