OddsFrontUnited States designates Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang a terrorist organisation
Washington is coupling the designation with deeper security cooperation and a proposed $45 million funding request for operations against Ecuadorian gangs.
Washington expands its campaign
The United States has designated Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang as a terrorist organisation, extending Washington’s use of counterterrorism tools against Latin American criminal networks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the measure in Quito on September 9 during talks with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa. Rubio linked the organisation to narcotics trafficking and attacks against civilians, police officers and journalists.
A gang with national reach
Los Tiguerones became internationally prominent in January 2024 when armed men stormed the TC Televisión studio in Guayaquil during a live broadcast. The assault helped crystallise Ecuador’s security crisis and was followed by Noboa’s declaration of an internal armed conflict against organised-crime groups. The gang operates within the violent competition over Pacific trafficking routes connecting cocaine-producing areas in Colombia and Peru with overseas markets.
Money and operational cooperation
Rubio said the administration would ask Congress for an additional $45 million to support efforts to dismantle designated groups. He also described daily cooperation between elite US and Ecuadorian units. The funding is not yet an appropriation, and the announcement did not provide an operational timetable. Congressional consideration and the legal consequences attached to the designation will shape how rapidly the policy affects investigations, finance and cross-border support networks.
Ecuador’s security environment
The US State Department’s August travel advisory retained Ecuador at Level 2 while identifying crime, terrorism, unrest and kidnapping as nationwide risks. It imposed stricter restrictions for US government personnel in parts of Guayaquil, including Nueva Prosperina, an area long associated with violent gangs. The advisory is background rather than confirmation of the new designation, but it independently documents the security conditions behind Washington’s decision.
A broader regional strategy
The move comes as the Trump administration builds closer security relationships with conservative governments in Latin America. Rubio’s trip also included Colombia and Peru, with counternarcotics cooperation a central theme. Treating a gang as a terrorist organisation can widen financial and prosecutorial options, but it also blurs the conventional boundary between organised-crime policy and military or national-security policy.
What comes next
The immediate questions are which sanctions, prosecutions or asset restrictions follow and whether Congress approves the requested funding. Ecuadorian authorities will also have to show whether expanded cooperation reduces the gang’s ability to recruit, control neighbourhoods and move drugs without worsening alleged abuses in the country’s militarised security campaign. The designation itself is a legal and diplomatic action, not evidence that Los Tiguerones has been dismantled.