The Latin Kings gang has emerged as a prominent, though diffuse and multifaceted, criminal player in Ecuador. While many members have been integrated into the country’s larger mafia groups, a Latin Kings faction led by one strong Guayaquil-based leader has been able to maintain their independence in Ecuador’s crowded criminal underworld.

But today, the Latin Kings are defined by division. Some members remain committed to the group’s original ideals of Latin pride and community building, while others are deeply involved in criminal activities like drug dealing, extortion, and murder.

History

The Latin Kings formed in Chicago in the 1940s or 1950s as self-defense groups for Latin youth who faced violence and discrimination. In the 1980s, the group spread around the United States to places like New York and California, and shortly after, outside the continental United States to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In the 1990s, after some Latin Kings members were deported from the United States to Ecuador, the first chapters, called “nations,” were formed in the country.

Division within the Ecuadorian Latin Kings was present from the beginning. Separate nations formed in the country’s largest cities of Quito and Guayaquil and remained largely autonomous throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The Kings proliferated in both cities, especially in marginalized neighborhoods, and consolidated control over drug dealing and other criminal activities. The gang would frequently clash with other rivals like the Ñetas and the Masters of the Street for drug dealing territory.

In response to the violence, the administration of former President Rafael Correa launched an ambitious gang pacification process in 2007. Many Latin Kings came to the negotiating table, drawn by government promises of education, small business funding, and even government jobs for gang members. As a result, violence plummeted, with Ecuador’s murder rate falling to 6 per 100,000 residents in 2017, Correa’s final year in office.

Despite these successes, multiple factors eventually led to the dissolution of the peace programs and the continuation of the Latin Kings as a criminal — rather than social — group.

The Latin Kings’ top leader, Manuel Zúñiga, alias “King Majestic,” spearheaded the pacification efforts. But, because of the decentralized nature of the Latin Kings, leaders had little ability to prevent members from remaining involved in criminality. The pacification process also faltered in the mid-2010s as Correa left office, and compounding economic issues limited the government’s ability to invest in social programs.

The rise of “mafia” groups like the Choneros and Lobos also significantly altered the Latin Kings’ future. Through their presence in the prison system, Ecuador’s mafias lined their pockets with lucrative rents from criminal economies, eventually moving into drug trafficking and expanding their reach in the Ecuadorian government. Searching for manpower for their expansion, mafia leaders turned to the street gangs, among them the Latin Kings and their rivals, the Ñetas. They presented gang members with a choice: join or face extinction. In this context, hitmen killed Majestic in Quito in May 2022. Various theories blamed both the Lobos and the Choneros for the assassination.

The disintegration of the pacification process, the rise of the mafias, and Majestic’s death created an identity crisis within the Latin Kings. Many Kings have been incorporated into mafia structures, but continue to claim to be Latin Kings. Other Kings claim that this is against the rules of the organization. 

Majestic’s successor, Carlos Manuel Macías Saverio, alias “King Diablo,” has led his faction of the Kings down a more criminal path, while maintaining independence. His embrace of criminal economies like drug dealing and brutal violence to protect territory has been instrumental in ensuring the survival of the Latin Kings. This mentality is most evident in Durán, a municipality in the greater Guayaquil area, where the Latin Kings have fought a brutal war against the Chone Killers, a Choneros affiliate, since mid-2023.

Today, the Latin Kings in Ecuador could number in the hundreds of thousands, according to one Latin King leader. Other sources told InSight Crime in 2024 that the Latin Kings are one of the largest groups in the country. InSight Crime could not corroborate these claims.

Leadership

The Ecuadorian Latin Kings have a specific structure, as defined by the group’s official literature. At the top of the nation is an “inca,” along with a council of members who serve as vice president, enforcer, treasurer, secretary, and advisor. Below the council is a series of chapters, occasionally referred to as tribes. These chapters can have between 25 and 50 Kings, according to a Latin Kings leader and the group’s official literature.

After Majestic’s murder in 2022, Diablo emerged as the Latin Kings’ top leader in Ecuador, though his control over chapters around the country is likely limited. A Guayaquil native, Diablo was a close ally of Majestic. But while Diablo was committed to the pacification process, he also remained involved in criminal activity.

Geography

Ecuador’s Latin Kings chapters originally emerged in Guayaquil and Quito in the 1990s, and have since spread to smaller cities around Ecuador. However, the Guayaquil metropolitan area, hometown of both Majestic and Diablo, is the Kings’ main stronghold.

The Ecuadorian Latin Kings maintain some contact with their counterparts in Europe, the United States, and other Latin American countries. The gang controls territory in Ecuador’s prison system, including in Guayaquil’s infamous Litoral Penitentiary. There, the gang takes the form of a mafia group rather than a street gang, profiting from lucrative economies like extortion and contraband.

Allies and Enemies

The fragmented nature of the Latin Kings means their alliances and enemies are difficult to identify. Factions of the group have forged opportunistic alliances with a variety of Ecuadorian mafia groups, including the Lobos and the Tiguerones. But these alliances seem to depend on local context and not on nationwide power blocs.

However, one consistent enemy of the Latin Kings is the Chone Killers. The groups have battled for territory in Durán, one of Ecuador’s primary cocaine trafficking hubs. Largely as a product of the conflict between the Latin Kings and Chone Killers, in 2023 and 2024, Durán’s murder rate eclipsed 145 per 100,000 residents, making it one of the world’s most violent cities.

Prospects

The Latin Kings are experiencing an identity crisis. This has been spurred by external factors such as a complete shift in government policy towards the group, as well as the rise of prison-based criminal groups that have mutated Ecuador’s crime landscape, throwing a wedge in the Kings’ historically ambiguous position between the licit and illicit spheres. This crisis means Kings factions around Ecuador will struggle to work together even more so than in the past.

Still, the Latin Kings will likely remain an influential criminal force, especially in the Guayaquil area. One of Ecuador’s largest criminal groups in terms of manpower, the Latin Kings’ roots run deep in communities around the country. This is a product of its strong social standing, which is behind the group’s popularity in Ecuador and around the region. Under Diablo’s leadership, the group has also proved adaptable in Ecuador’s rapidly shifting criminal landscape. They have risen to the challenge posed by rivals’ incursions.

Featured Image: Latin Kings graffiti on the side of a house in the coastal city of Durán, Ecuador (Anastasia Austin / InSight Crime).

#border #crime #latinamerica #news