Gunmen disguised as gift bearers kill gang leader at Guayaquil airport

Flowers and stuffed toys were used as cover for a point-blank killing inside one of Ecuador’s most controlled public spaces. Security footage showed two young men waiting outside the international arrivals terminal at José Joaquín de Olmedo Airport in Guayaquil before one stepped toward the victim, pulled a gun from behind a teddy bear and shot him at close range.

Police detained two teenagers in connection with the killing. Ecuador’s Interior Ministry identified the dead man as Carlos Alberto Suástegui Villanueva, whom authorities described as the leader of the Los Águilas gang in El Triunfo, east of Guayaquil. Some reports said Suástegui Villanueva had arrived with his wife, and that another person was wounded in the shooting.

The attack struck at the heart of Guayaquil’s main airport, in the international arrivals area, where travelers, families and airport staff move through a space meant to signal order and control. Instead, the ambush showed how organized crime has learned to hide in plain sight, using the everyday symbols of greeting and celebration to lower suspicion before turning them into cover for a killing.

The shooting came one day after President Daniel Noboa declared a fresh 60-day state of emergency in 10 provinces and 3 municipalities, including Guayas, citing rising criminal violence and serious internal unrest. The timing underscored how deeply the security crisis has spread, even as the government tries to expand its emergency powers across the country’s most volatile areas.

Los Águilas had reportedly been designated a terrorist organization earlier in 2024, part of a broader campaign against armed groups that have turned Ecuador into one of the region’s sharpest security flashpoints. The violence has repeatedly spilled into public life in Guayaquil and beyond, exposing the limits of state control as gangs fight for territory, routes and influence. The airport ambush, staged with flowers and stuffed animals, turned a symbol of arrival into a scene of execution.