Ecuadorian and Colombian authorities captured the wife and daughter of former Choneros leader alias “Fito” in Santander, Colombia, the most recent strike against his family network. Also On the Radar: Chilean police say they have dismantled the PCC’s first cell in the country, and Colombia extradited Border Command leader alias “Araña” to the United States.

The wife and daughter of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias “Fito,” the former leader of Ecuador’s Choneros, were captured in Sabana de Torres, Santander, Colombia, on September 27 by Ecuadorian and Colombian authorities, with help from the US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

Inda Mariela Peñarrieta Tuárez and Michelle Jamileth Macías Peñarrieta were wanted in Ecuador in a money laundering case known as “Blanqueo Fito.” Ecuadorian investigators allege Fito’s wife and daughter were seeking alliances with Colombian criminal organizations to move arms, drugs, and money before they were arrested. 

There have been multiple strikes against Fito’s inner circle following his recapture in June 2025 and extradition to the United States weeks later. On May 28, 2026, an Ecuadorian court convicted six people from his family circle of asset laundering in the Blanqueo Fito case, among them his romantic partner, Verónica Briones. One of Fito’s brothers, Ronald Javier Macías Villamars, alias “Javi,” was captured in a Bogotá apartment in June and expelled to Ecuador, where he awaits trial in the same case. 

The fall of Fito’s inner circle has left a leadership vacuum within the Choneros at a time when the group is struggling to maintain influence in Ecuador’s ever more fragmented criminal landscape.

Chilean police detained 20 people on September 28 in what prosecutors described as the first cell of Brazil’s First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) in the country, but authorities detected the first signs of a PCC presence in the country in 2022.

Colombia extradited Geovany Andrés Rojas, alias “Araña,” leader of a FARC dissident group known as the Border Command (Comandos de la Frontera), to the United States on September 25, on cocaine trafficking and “narco-terrorism” charges. Rojas had been in custody since February 2025, after he was arrested at the end of a press conference between his organization and the Petro government, where he served as a peace delegate. The extradition cements the formal end of Colombia’s Total Peace negotiations.