The music video features footage of José Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macías Villamar in prison (Pictures: YouTube)
A music video featuring one of Ecuador’s most feared drug lords appears to have been filmed inside the prison he’s incarcerated in.
The professional-quality video pays homage to José Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macías Villamar and includes a number of shots of the convicted murderer inside the Guayaquil prison where he’s incarcerated.
It opens on footage of a woman riding a horse, before we get a glimpse of Fito’s bearded face under a wide-brimmed hat.
In a third shot two men then begin crooning about the highly dangerous criminal, who they describe as a ‘man of good honour’.
The woman, who is actually Tito’s daughter, a musician going by the name Queen Michelle, also sings about her father, calling him a ‘family man’.
The song, posted on YouTube over the weekend, is called ‘El Corrido del León’ – ‘The Lion’s Ballad’ and taunts a government that has proved incapable of taking back control of its prisons from increasingly powerful gangs, the Washington Post reports.
At one point the men sing: ‘Es el jefe y patrón, señores,’, which means, ‘He’s the boss’.
The footage of Tito was recorded in an area of the prison that holds some of the country’s most dangerous criminals.
Journalists have questioned how this was allowed, especially considering the media is rarely allowed to film inside the country’s prisons.
Officials from Guayaquil prison have not yet provided an explanation but professor David Cordero-Heredia, who studies the Ecuadorian prison system, believes ‘state officials’ would have helped make it happen.
‘It’s impossible that these types of things could happen without the intervention of state forces,’ he said.
Fito is known for leading Los Choneros – a gang thought to work with the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle cocaine to the US.
Fito stroking a cockerel (Picture: YouTube)
The prison has not explained how a crew were able to film Tito inside the facility (Picture: YouTube)
A few weeks ago, Ecuadorian president Guillermo Lasso sent thousands of security personnel into the Guayaquil to transfer Fito to a maximum-security facility.
‘Ecuador will recover peace and security,’ Mr Lasso wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Footage of the high profile move was even shared online.
But then earlier this month, a judge authorised for Fito to return to Guayaquil.
In the past two years hundreds of prisoners have been killed in bloody battles at Ecuadorian prisons and gangs regularly smuggle in drugs, phones, weapons and explosive devices they use to blow holes in the walls.
Two men croon about Tito, describing him as a ‘man on honour’ (Picture: YouTube)
Tito’s daughter, a musician who calls herself Queen Michelle, sings in the music video (Picture: YouTube)
Prison guards have even stood outside the prison walls, it’s reported, while inmates behead and dismember other inmates.
Mr Cordero-Heredia said releasing Tito’s music video on social media shows gangs now feel safe and powerful enough to no longer hide behind secrecy.
This type of boldness by drug cartels has historically been far more common in Mexico and Columbia.
There, ballads similar to Tito’s are known as narcocorridos (a combination of the Spanish words for drug lord and running) and have long celebrated outlaws and their battles with law enforcement.
Fito is known for leading a drug gang called Los Choneros (Picture: National Police of Ecuador)
Tito being transferred to a high security prison
‘We’ve heard narcocorridos that are Mexican or Colombian, but never Ecuadorian,’ said Christian Palacios, a human rights advocate and researcher who focuses on Ecuador’s prison system. ‘This is normalising crime and showing, in a public way, that it’s possible to triumph being a delinquent.’
The fact the songs have made their way to Ecuador could reflect the growing influence of Mexican cartels in the country, who have been working with local gangs to take control of drug routes.
Ecuador lies between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s biggest coca producers, so is an important transit country.
In recent years it’s become a battleground for drug criminals, leading to a huge rise in violence in a country that has previously been seen as relatively safe.
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