A notorious Ecuadorian drug lord fighting extradition in a Spanish court made an explosive claim, accusing Ecuador's president and interior minister of orchestrating the 2023 assassination of a prominent presidential candidate.
Wilmer Chavarría, widely known by his alias "Pipo", appeared before Spain's National Court to contest his transfer to Ecuador, where he is wanted to serve a 16-year sentence for three homicides. But during the Monday hearing, the presumed leader of the powerful Los Lobos criminal organization argued that sending him back to his home country would be a death sentence.
“The only reason they want to take him to Ecuador is to silence him; if he arrives in Ecuador, he is a dead man,” his defense team told OCCRP following the hearing.
According to his lawyers, Chavarría testified that Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and Interior Minister John Reimberg were behind the brazen daylight murder of Fernando Villavicencio, a journalist and anti-corruption presidential candidate who was gunned down by hitmen just days before the 2023 election.
The defense also asserted that Chavarría had "gathered many proofs of the linking of Noboa with drug trafficking," though no such evidence was immediately made public during the proceedings.
The dramatic allegations introduce a volatile new dimension to the international tug-of-war over Chavarría, who is considered one of South America's most elusive and dangerous criminal figures. Spanish prosecutors argued that his extradition to Ecuador is legally appropriate."
Further complicating his fate is a competing extradition request from the United States, where Chavarría faces federal charges for allegedly attempting to traffic five tonnes of cocaine.
His legal team has woven the U.S. request into its broader narrative of a conspiracy, alleging that there is a "pact between the United States and Noboa to deceive the Spanish authorities." According to this theory, Chavarría would be sent first to the U.S. and eventually to Ecuador, "where they are going to eliminate him to prevent him from telling what he knows about Noboa and Reimberg."
Chavarría’s path to the Spanish courtroom reads like a narco-thriller. Authorities say he faked his own death in Ecuador in 2020 before slipping into Spain in 2022 using a forged Colombian passport. Along the way, investigators allege, he underwent seven separate facial reconstructive surgeries to evade detection.
His run ended in November 2025, when Spanish police captured him in the coastal city of Málaga.
The Spanish National Court is expected to issue a ruling on his extradition in the coming weeks. Whether he is sent to face justice in Quito, tried in the United States, or remains in Europe, Chavarría's explosive accusations ensure that his case will continue to cast a long shadow over the highest levels of the Ecuadorian government.
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