Noboa Grapples With Another High-Profile Prison Break in Ecuador

Ecuador’s government offered a $1 million reward on Monday for information leading to the recapture of suspected drug lord Rolando Federico Gomez after he escaped from a Guayaquil penitentiary disguised in a military uniform to pass checkpoints unhindered.

President Daniel Noboa designated the man colloquially known as Fede a military target after his breakout Friday. His escape “wasn’t negligence, it was complicity,” the president said Saturday in a post on X, adding that toughened recent legislation will be applied to the fugitive. The Prosecutor General’s Office detained 19 soldiers, two prison guards and an inmate amid its initial investigation.