Human heads found on Ecuador beach in gang warning
Five human heads were discovered on a tourist beach in Ecuador on Sunday, in what authorities say is a warning to gang members. The heads were tied to wooden posts on the popular whale-watching beach, alongside a board threatening local gangs involved in extortion, known as “vaccine cards.”
“The town belongs to us. Keep robbing fishermen and demanding vaccine cards, we already have you identified,” the message read, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
President Daniel Noboa has launched a military campaign against gangs, but two years of operations have failed to stop the violence. In December, the same beach was the scene of killings that left at least nine people, including a baby, dead.
Ecuador, a key transit hub for cocaine between Peru and Colombia, ended 2025 with a record homicide rate of 52 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Organized Crime Observatory.
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