US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the gang \u2060had also been classified as a \u2018Specially Designated Global Terrorist\u2019.<\/p>\n
Published On 2 Jul 20262 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
The US\u2060 State Department has designated the Ecuadorean gang Chone Killers as a foreign \u201cterrorist organisation\u201d, imposing sanctions on a crime \u2060group that Washington has accused of carrying out attacks on civilians and public officials.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the gang \u2060has also been classified as a \u201cSpecially Designated Global Terrorist\u201d.<\/p>\n
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\u201cChone Killers has committed numerous attacks targeting civilians, law enforcement officers and government officials, including high-profile assassinations of public officials,\u201d Rubio said in a statement announcing the designations.<\/p>\n
The move against the Ecuadorian street gang \u200cis part of a broader campaign by US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration on organised crime and drug trafficking in Latin America.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has designated several other Latin American gangs and drug cartels as \u201cterrorist\u201d organisations, including Venezuela\u2019s Tren de Aragua and the Mexican Sinaloa cartel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Trump administration, in \u2060partnership with Ecuador and President Daniel Noboa, will continue to protect our hemisphere by keeping illicit drugs off our streets and disrupting the revenue streams funding \u2060violent narcoterrorists,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n
Rubio also alleged that Ecuadorean gangs help Mexican cartels transport and export illegal drugs, \u2060which he said fund \u201cterrorism\u201d and other \u2060criminal activity.<\/p>\n
Ecuador\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the US decision, saying it reflected Washington\u2019s strong support for Noboa\u2019s campaign against criminal organisations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government of Ecuador thanks \u200cthe firm support of the United States for the decision by President Daniel Noboa to maintain an all-out fight against \u200ccriminal \u200corganisations,\u201d the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on X.<\/p>\n
Noboa, a staunch ally of Trump, has imposed curfews and deployed the military to several provinces in a US-backed crackdown aimed at stamping out gang activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the gang \u2060had also been classified as a \u2018Specially Designated Global…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3071,4122,3140,3,3076,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-738292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-crime","tag-ecuador","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-prison","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}