The Prosecutor’s Office accuses Wilder Sánchez, nicknamed ‘Gato Farfán’, of having laundered at least 17 million dollars from drug trafficking.
The Prosecutor’s Office accuses Wilder Sánchez, nicknamed ‘Gato Farfan’having washed at least 17 million dollars coming from drug trafficking. He is branded by the Government as “the biggest drug trafficker” when he was arrested at the beginning of the year in Colombia.
During the trial preparatory hearing held this Tuesday in Quito, the Prosecutor’s Office presented its elements of conviction against ‘Gato Farfán’ and ten other natural persons, as well as five legal entities, for the alleged money laundering crime.
“Wilder S. and his organization would have laundered money from drug trafficking to introduce it into the national financial system. Furthermore, with his wife they would have created companies to inject illicit capital and then transfer it to their accomplices,” the Public Ministry explained in a message published on social networks.
“After the judge hearing the case declared the procedural validity, the Prosecutor’s Office presented the accusatory ruling against the defendants: family and friends of ‘Gato Farfán’whose extradition process from Colombia is approved,” he added.
‘Gato Farfán’ was captured on February 9 in the border city of Pasto (Colombia), in a joint operation between the police of Colombia and Ecuador called ‘Ceres’ to execute an arrest warrant for extradition purposes requested by the Court of the Southern District of California (United States).
At the time of the arrest, the then Ecuadorian Minister of the Interior Juan Zapata asserted that ‘Gato Farfán’ was “the target of the highest value and importance for the State”, being the leader of the self-proclaimed Nueva Generación Ecuador cartel.
According to Zapata, ‘Gato Farfán’ “coordinated the shipment of drugs to the United States through different modalities through the main ports of Ecuador and Mexico, in association with the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels.”
Likewise, he stated that the detainee is responsible for several of the prison massacres that have occurred in Ecuador in recent years and that have left more than 450 prisoners murdered due to clashes between rival gangs since 2020, and for several murders on public roads.
For his part, the deputy commander general of the National Police of Ecuador, Manuel Iñíguez, detailed at the time of the arrest that ‘Gato Farfán’ had already been detained initially in 2013 and spent time in jail until who was released again. EFE