“El Encuentro Te Espera”: Los Tiguerones’ Alleged Leader Deported To Face Justice In Ecuador

QUITO — Ecuador’s Interior Minister confirmed on Tuesday that Guido Fernando Rodríguez Vargas — known as “Comandante 7,” the alleged top leader of the Ecuadorian criminal organization Los Tiguerones — was expelled from Colombia and transferred directly to a maximum-security prison in Ecuador, five days after his capture in a Bogotá-area operation.

Colombian National Police, working in coordination with Ecuador’s National Intelligence Center, captured Rodríguez Vargas on September 10-11 in the municipality of Soacha, in Cundinamarca department, on Bogotá’s southern outskirts.

President Abelardo de la Espriella announced the arrest directly on social media, describing Rodríguez Vargas as a “high-value target” for Ecuador and confirming the capture was carried out for extradition purposes.

Colombian authorities identified him as a key figure in narcotrafficking coordination between Colombia and Ecuador on behalf of Los Tiguerones, alleging he managed illicit revenue streams used to finance the organization’s logistics and armed capacity in Ecuador’s Esmeraldas province and Colombia’s Nariño department.

Authorities also linked him to the Estado Mayor Central, the FARC dissident structure commanded by alias “Iván Mordisco,” describing him as a transnational logistical coordinator connecting the two criminal networks along the border. The capture took place under De la Espriella’s security policy branded “La Patria Milagro,” as part of Operación Aqueronte.

Rodríguez Vargas carried an Interpol Red Notice and was formally wanted by Ecuadorian justice on charges of homicide and organized crime. Rather than a formal extradition process, Colombian authorities expelled him directly, and he arrived in Guayaquil on the night of September 15 into September 16.

Ecuador’s Interior Minister, John Reimberg, confirmed the transfer on X, sharing a photograph of Rodríguez Vargas seated and handcuffed inside a small aircraft, flanked by police officers. “Alias 07, El Encuentro te espera” — “Alias 07, El Encuentro awaits you” — Reimberg wrote, referring to the maximum-security Cárcel del Encuentro in Santa Elena province, where he confirmed Rodríguez Vargas would be held.

In a follow-up post, Reimberg added: “He was expelled from Colombia last night and arrived in Guayaquil. He will face Ecuadorian justice for his crimes. El Encuentro has a new guest.”

Who Rodríguez Vargas Is

Rodríguez Vargas, an Ecuadorian national also known by the aliases “El 7” and “Nébula,” is considered by Ecuadorian authorities to be a principal cross-border liaison for Los Tiguerones, with operations concentrated between Esmeraldas, Ecuador, and Nariño, Colombia.

Ecuador’s judiciary system shows he was previously dismissed from a homicide case but faces an active, pending organized crime proceeding — one in which he appears linked to William Joffre Alcívar Bautista, alias “Negro Willy,” identified as one of Los Tiguerones’ principal leaders.

A Gang Born Inside Ecuador’s Most Dangerous Prison

Los Tiguerones emerged in the late 2010s inside the Penitenciaría del Litoral, Ecuador’s largest, most populous, and most dangerous prison, located in Guayaquil, where the group’s founder and top leader, William Alcívar, alias “Willy,” worked as a prison guard tasked with controlling the facility’s most dangerous inmates.

That origin has shaped the organization’s continued reliance on prison-based command structures, reflected in Cárcel del Encuentro’s growing roster of high-profile transferred or extradited suspects, which Rodríguez Vargas now joins alongside previously transferred figures known as “Lobo Menor,” “Fede,” and “Gerente.”

Los Tiguerones’ significance extends beyond this single capture. The group became the fourth Ecuadorian criminal organization the United States has formally designated a terrorist organization, a designation Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced during his visit to Quito as part of his broader Andean tour — a trip we covered in detail, alongside his meetings with Colombian President De la Espriella and Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori.

The designation reinforced the deepening security cooperation between Washington and President Daniel Noboa’s government in what Noboa has described as a war against organized crime, and Rubio separately announced plans to request an additional $45 million from the U.S. Congress in support of that cooperation during the same visit.

Part of Broader Ecuador–Colombia Offensive

Rodríguez Vargas’s capture and transfer fit within the wider pattern of aggressive, binational security operations we’ve documented extensively in recent weeks — De la Espriella’s continuing campaign against FARC dissidents, the ELN, and allied criminal structures across Colombia, now extending explicitly into cross-border cooperation with Ecuador against Los Tiguerones specifically.

Colombian officials framed the operation as evidence of the value of binational cooperation against criminal structures that exploit the Colombia-Ecuador border to move illicit resources and sustain cross-border alliances, and De la Espriella’s government has said it will continue coordinated operations with Ecuador against organizations involved in narcotrafficking and related crimes.

With Rodríguez Vargas now in custody and facing Ecuador’s pending organized crime case against him, Ecuadorian authorities are expected to move forward with prosecution proceedings in the coming weeks.

His capture and transfer are likely to be treated as a significant marker of the deepening Colombia-Ecuador security partnership, particularly given his alleged ties to both Los Tiguerones’ cross-border operations and Colombia’s own FARC dissident structures — connections that suggest further binational operations against the broader network he was allegedly part of remain likely.