The leader of the Tiguerones, one of Ecuador’s most powerful and violent criminal groups and an important link in the international cocaine supply chain, has been captured in Spain, potentially hastening the group’s fragmentation.
William Alcívar Bautista, alias “Willy” or “Negro Willy,” was taken into custody in a joint operation between Spanish and Ecuadorian police in the northeastern coastal city of Tarragona, along with his brother, Álex Alcívar Bautista, alias “Ronco,” the Tiguerones’ second-in-command. Press reports suggest that the brothers were living in Europe using false documents.
The Tiguerones shot to international notoriety when young masked and armed men allegedly belonging to the gang launched an assault on a live TV news broadcast in January 2024 that was part of disturbances around Ecuador that made headlines around the world. The events of those days became emblematic of the South American country’s descent into criminal violence and chaos. Shortly after, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared that Ecuador was in the grips of an “internal armed conflict.”
Like many of Ecuador’s organized criminal structures, the Tiguerones’ origins lie within the prison system, where Willy worked as a prison guard.
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There, he began working with Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña” or “JL,” leader of the Choneros, eventually forming the Tiguerones as a Choneros faction. Rasquiña’s murder in late 2020 prompted a fracturing of the Choneros. The Tiguerones joined a breakaway coalition of former Choneros factions and turned on what remained of the network. By 2023, they had allied once again with the Choneros and entered into a new conflict with their former coalition partners, the Lobos.
Willy is believed to have fled Ecuador sometime after his release from prison in 2018. His brother Ronco was released in 2021, and took on the role of the Tiguerones regional commander for the south of the city of Esmeraldas, according to the Esmeraldas police.
Willy’s gang has been involved in power struggles that have turned Esmeraldas into one of Ecuador’s most violent cities, and is behind some of the worst cases of mass killings and violence in Ecuador’s crime wars so far.
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Recently, the strength and influence of the Tiguerones have been on the decline, partly due to the impact of Ecuador’s militarized security crackdown, which Noboa launched in January 2024.
Attacks from rival gang the Lobos in their home patch of Esmeraldas have further weakened the cohesion of the criminal group, according to law enforcement and community sources who spoke to InSight Crime during recent fieldwork in the city. The group has also been weakened by the formation of splinter groups in the city of Guayaquil, according to media reports.
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Despite his absence, Willy, who has become something of a criminal icon in troubled Ecuador, was a unifying figure. His arrest – along with that of his natural successor, Ronco – could accelerate the gang’s process of atomization, which in turn could drive more violence on the streets of Ecuador’s cities as the gang’s rivals seek to capitalize on the Tiguerones ’weakness and the remaining leaders fight to fill the leadership vacuum left by Willy’s arrest.
Featured Image: Tiguerones-themed grafitti in the city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Credit: Ecuador221.com