Five human heads were found hanging on a tourist beach Ecuador on Sunday, police said, as the country reeled from a wave of gang violence.
Images on social media showed five heads tied with ropes to two wooden poles on the beach in Puerto Lopez, a popular whale-watching destination in the country’s southwest.
Beside them, a wooden board bore a message threatening gang members who extort protection payments known locally as “vaccine cards.”
“The village is ours. Keep robbing the fishermen and asking for vaccination cards, we have already identified you,” he said.
At the same beach in December, at least nine people died, including a child, in violence that authorities blamed on clashes between local gangs.
Ecuador ended 2025 as the most violent year on record, with a homicide rate of 52 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.
President Daniel Noboa has pledged to fight against the criminal organizations that have expanded their operations in the territory of Ecuador in connection with the international drug cartels. But two years of military activity has not stopped the bloodshed.
Since 2021, there has been an increase in criminal violence in Ecuador by groups operating in coordination with Colombians Mexican posters those involved in drug trafficking.
Strategically located between Colombia and Peru, two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, it has become an important transit point for narcotics.