Ecuador Arrests Ex-President's Son

The Ecuadorian police reported that they arrested the son of former president Abdalá Bucaram, Jacobo Bucaram Pulley, for removing an electronic surveillance shackle while he was at a party where authorities found weapons and people linked to criminal gangs.

Bucaram Pulley is one of the 34 detained in the operation carried out the day before, after it was found that he removed the surveillance shackle that he is obliged to wear while he is investigated for alleged corruption in the sale of medical supplies to public hospitals in the midst of the pandemic, the police said.

The Prosecutor's Office, for its part, noted on the same social network that the judge rejected the prison request and dictated "other measures" alternatives to prison. Local media noted that Bucaram Pulley must comply with house arrest.

Jacobo Bucaram and his father are accused of having formed a "criminal structure that obtained economic benefits" from the sale of some 21,000 tests to diagnose covid-19 between March and June 2020, when the country was facing the worst of the pandemic.

In 2021, a judge dismissed both of them, but the Prosecutor's Office appealed that decision.

The former president was removed during a popular revolt in February 1997, six months after taking office, and he lived in exile in Panama for two decades.

At the event held in the coastal province of Guayas, the epicenter of drug trafficking and one of the most violent in the country, alias Feder was also arrested, "allegedly linked to the terrorist organization 'Las Águilas', who has a record of murder, robbery, illicit association, possession and carrying of weapons," the police added.

The other detainees also have criminal records.

At the party, which was attended by about 150 people, the police seized 34 pistols, 3 carbines, 4 rifles, 1,306 cartridges and 14 communication radios.