(Bloomberg) -- Two men allegedly behind the attack on a Guayaquil television station that made global headlines and triggered Ecuador’s war on gangs have been arrested in Spain, giving President Daniel Noboa a much needed boost amid a severe electricity crisis.
Spain’s federal police arrested William Alcívar and Alex Alcívar, the leader and No. 2 of the Tiguerones drug trafficking organization, in Catalonia. Ecuadorian officers participated in the arrest, according to Ecuador’s Interior Ministry.
Authorities accuse them of murder, organized crime, extortion and contract killings and of ordering both the January attack on the broadcaster and the subsequent murder of the prosecutor investigating their case, also in Guayaquil.
“They are also linked to crime groups of Mexico and Colombia via drug trafficking” and used fake passports to travel to Spain, where “they lived like princes,” Ecuador National Police Commander César Zapata said during a press conference Wednesday alongside a Spanish police liaison official.
The Alcívars are the top Ecuadorian criminal targets arrested since Noboa declared war on drug organizations. Drug lord Adolfo Macías or alias Fito, whose escape from a prison in Guayaquil on Jan. 8 led Noboa to declare a state of emergency, remains at large.
A day later, the attack on TC Televisión during a live broadcast created an image of a nation descending into chaos, prompting Noboa to declare an unprecedented domestic war on gangs, dubbing 22 of them terrorist organizations.
While police held the press conference on the arrests, Interior Minister Mónica Palencia was defending herself before Ecuador’s National Assembly against impeachment charges of dereliction of duty filed by leftwing opposition party Citizen Revolution.
After nine hours of debate, only 72 lawmakers of 133 present voted in favor of impeaching her, failing to clear the 92-vote threshold required as 40 voted “no” and 16 abstained.
Amid the violent crime crisis, Ecuador has had to turn to the International Monetary Fund for budget support and is suffering a second month of electricity rationing caused by severe drought.
Noboa, who won an out-of-cycle election last year, is running for president for the regular election scheduled for February 2025, with Citizen Revolution’s Luisa Gonzalez his strongest challenger, according to polls published before the blackouts began.
(Updates with failed impeachment bid against interior minister in eighth paragraph)
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