The Trump administration on Wednesday designated Ecuador‘s Chone Killers gang a foreign terrorist organization, the latest step in a sweeping effort to treat some of Latin America’s most violent criminal networks as national security threats.
The U.S. State Department said the Ecuadorian gang had also been classified as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, a move that imposes sanctions on the group and makes it a crime under U.S. law to knowingly provide material support to the organization.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the gang had carried out attacks targeting civilians, law enforcement officers and government officials, including high-profile assassinations of public officials.
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In announcing the designation, Rubio accused the Chone Killers of carrying out attacks against civilians, law enforcement officers and government officials, including high-profile assassinations, and said Ecuadorian gangs help Mexican cartels transport and export drugs that fund terrorism and other criminal activity.
Newsweek reached out by email to the relevant U.S. and Ecuadorian government press offices for comment on Thursday morning outside of office hours and has yet to receive a reply.
“The Department’s action today further demonstrates the Trump Administration’s unwavering commitment to dismantling cartels and narcoterrorists in our region and ensuring the safety of the American people,” Rubio said in a statement.
Under U.S. law, the designation freezes any assets connected to the organization under U.S. jurisdiction and makes it a federal crime to knowingly provide material support to the group.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) separately announced sanctions tied to the designation.
Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the U.S. decision, describing it as a sign of support for President Daniel Noboa’s efforts to combat criminal organizations and improve security. Noboa has made gang violence a central focus of his government.
“The Government of Ecuador thanks the firm support of the United States for the decision by President Daniel Noboa to maintain an all-out fight against criminal organisations,” the Foreign Ministry wrote in a post on X.
The action is the latest in a series of designations targeting gangs and cartels across Latin America during President Donald Trump’s second administration. Washington has previously designated groups including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and other criminal organizations as terrorist entities, arguing that transnational organized crime poses a growing threat to regional security.
The Chone Killers originated as an armed wing of Los Choneros, one of Ecuador’s most powerful criminal organizations, before breaking away and becoming a separate splinter faction in 2020. Los Choneros was previously designated by the United States as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
The split followed the December 2020 assassination of Los Choneros leader Jorge Luis Zambrano, widely known by the alias “Rasquiña,” who was shot dead in the coastal city of Manta.
After Zambrano’s killing, Los Choneros fragmented into rival factions, including Los Lobos, Los Tiguerones and Chone Killers, as groups competed for control of cocaine trafficking routes connected to Ecuador’s Pacific ports. Ecuador has become a major transit corridor for cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia and Peru and shipped onward to markets in North America and Europe.
The gang’s primary base of operations is Durán, a city across the river from Guayaquil in Guayas province.
Ecuadorian outlet GK reported that the Chone Killers were led by brothers Terry Israel Camacho, known as “Trompudo,” and Antonio Benjamín Camacho, known as “Ben 10.” The brothers were killed by gunmen in Cali, Colombia, on December 28, 2024.
Another major leader of the group is Julio Alberto Martínez Alcívar, known as “Negro Tulio.”
The gang has continued to fracture. Primicias reported in February 2026 that Ecuador’s National Police had identified at least 10 subgroups or smaller gangs emerging from the Chone Killers after the capture or isolation of key leaders.
One of those splinter groups is Chone Wu Tang, which Primicias described as a dissident faction of the Chone Killers expanding into Samborondón, Daule, and Yaguachi, where officials accused it of operating drug storage sites and extending microtrafficking and extortion networks.
The Chone Killers have been locked in a long-running rivalry with the Latin Kings in Durán, according to InSight Crime, a media organization and think tank dedicated to the study of organized crime in the Americas. That rivalry has shaped the city’s criminal ecosystem and contributed to the violence that has made Durán one of Ecuador’s most-dangerous urban areas.
The U.S. designation of Chone Killers follows earlier U.S. actions against Ecuadorian groups. In September 2025, the State Department designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, saying both had attacked and threatened public officials, judges, prosecutors, journalists and security personnel in Ecuador.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and James Debens