Within just a few years, the Tiguerones have risen from obscurity to a position as one of Ecuador’s most dangerous and influential criminal organizations and an important link in the international cocaine trafficking supply chain.
Founded by an ex-prison guard, the group was born in Guayaquil as a faction of the Choneros prison mafia. But it is rooted in the northwestern city of Esmeraldas and Esmeraldas diaspora communities in Guayaquil. After breaking away from the Choneros, the Tiguerones have forged a fearsome reputation as one of the country’s most violent criminal groups while building up an extensive portfolio of criminal economies, including retail drug trafficking, extortion, and robbery, as well as providing services for transnational drug trafficking organizations.
History
The Tiguerones were formed by William Joffre Alcívar Bautista, alias “Negro Willy,” or simply “Willy,” in the late 2010s. At the time, Willy was a prison guard in Guayaquil, where he began bringing in contraband for the Choneros leader Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña” or “JL.”
According to a source close to the Choneros leadership, Rasquiña sought to capitalize on Willy’s connections to his hometown of Esmeraldas, where his family were petty criminals, and dispatched him with orders to take out rivals and seize territory. While this led to Willy’s arrest on murder charges in 2017, Willy’s family continued to expand in Esmeraldas while Willy built up the Tiguerones network within the prisons.
After the charges against Willy were dropped, the advance of the Tiguerones continued, culminating with the group securing their position as the dominant criminal actor in the city of Esmeraldas, albeit as a proxy for the Choneros.
However, when the murder of Rasquiña in late 2020 triggered a breakup of the Choneros, the Tiguerones became independent. They joined a coalition of former Choneros factions calling themselves the Nueva Generación or New Generation, along with other gangs including the Lobos and the Chone Killers.
The New Generation turned against what remained of the Choneros, waging a war on their former bosses that drove up murder rates on the streets and led to a series of brutal massacres in the prisons. During this conflict, the Tiguerones were involved in the worst incident of mass violence in Ecuador’s history, when at least 119 prisoners were killed after the gang launched a failed attempt to seize control of a rival’s wing in the Litoral Prison in Guayaquil, the country’s biggest penitentiary.
By 2023, however, the Tiguerones flipped again, striking up an alliance with the Choneros and instead disputing territories with the Lobos, above all in Esmeraldas, where their former allies launched a violent campaign to take control of the Tiguerones’ stronghold. The fighting turned Esmeraldas into one of Ecuador’s most violent cities, and it saw some of the worst cases of mass killing. Among them was an April 2023 massacre of nine fishermen in Esmeraldas allegedly carried out by the Tiguerones in a dispute over extortion payments.
The Tiguerones have also been involved in some of the most notorious cases of prison mafias deploying terror tactics to pressure the state. In 2022, the Tiguerones, along with the Lobos, were believed to be behind a wave of attacks that included car bombs and hanging bodies from bridges. The attacks were in response to government plans to enact mass transfers of prisoners out of Litoral, which threatened both their income and their strength inside the prisons. Then in January 2024, when new President Daniel Noboa moved against leading mafia bosses in the prisons, the Tiguerones played a central role in another round of coordinated attacks, allegedly carrying out the on-air takeover of a TV news station that shocked the country and made headlines around the world.
In response, the government declared the Tiguerones and other mafias “terrorist” groups, and that the country was in an “internal armed conflict.” The president then ordered a military intervention in the prisons and on the streets, which disrupted the Tiguerones prison networks in Guayaquil and Esmeraldas and put local commanders on the outside on the defensive.
Leadership
Since its founding, the core Tiguerones leadership group has been based on Willy, who is often referred to within the group as “El Emperador,” or the Emperor, and his immediate family, principally his brothers Alex Iván Alcívar Bautista, alias “Ronco,” and Luis Ernesto Alcivar Bautista alias “Puya,” as well as his father William Alcívar Bautista Quiñonez.
Willy is believed to have fled Ecuador sometime after his release from prison in 2018. Both Ronco and Puya were arrested in 2017. Ronco was sentenced to 88 months on robbery and organized crime charges, while Puya was convicted of murder and sentenced to 34 years. Ronco was released from prison in 2021, and then took on the role as Tiguerones regional commander for the south of the city of Esmeraldas, according to the Esmeraldas police. Puya escaped in 2019, since which time his whereabouts are unknown. Willy’s father was arrested on organized crime charges in 2023 and remains in prison.
In October 2024, Willy and Ronco were arrested in Spain in a joint operation between Spanish and Ecuadorian police.
Geography
The Tiguerones are predominantly present in their home city of Esmeraldas, as well as Guayaquil, where they were initially formed. In Guayaquil, they are traditionally strongest in Esmeraldas diaspora communities in Isla Trinitaria and the Socio Vivienda housing project. Within the prison system, their stronghold is the Esmeraldas prison, although they do not have complete control of the facility, and share it with another local group, the Gángsters. They have also long controlled a wing in the Litoral Prison.
Allies and Enemies
The Tiguerones first emerged as an independent organization as part of a broad front of criminal groups that included the Lobos and the Chone Killers. Their so-called New Generation faced off against the Choneros, and was backed by Ecuadorian drug traffickers, above all Leandro Norero.
The Tiguerones have struck up a new alliance with the Choneros, along with the Chone Killers, while their principal enemies are their old allies, the Lobos. In Esmeraldas, they have divided territories with the Gángsters, who are also aligned with the Choneros.
The Tiguerones are believed to have direct connections to the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), providing the Mexican group with drug trafficking services.
Prospects
The Tiguerones have been hit hard by the military interventions in the streets and the prisons in 2024, and by their ongoing conflict with the Lobos. The interventions disrupted their prison-based networks and capacity to coordinate activities with their gang wings on the outside. Police and community sources in Esmeraldas, meanwhile, report that security operations have weakened their operating capacity and sent some leaders into hiding, while they have also been losing ground to the Lobos. The Tiguerones also appear to be suffering from the growing atomization of Ecuador’s prison mafia networks, with reports of splinter groups emerging in Guayaquil. The arrest of Willy and his natural successor, Ronco, in October 2024 will likely accelerate their decline.