U.S. Designates Ecuadorean Gang as Terrorist

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that the United States was adding an Ecuadorean gang, Los Tiguerones, to its terrorism list, seeking to deny the group access to financial resources and U.S. banking networks.

The action, which Mr. Rubio spoke about during a brief visit to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is the latest in a series of terrorist designations of criminal groups in Latin America undertaken by the Trump administration.

The State Department is designating Los Tiguerones as both a foreign terrorist organization and a specially designated global terrorist. Those formal labels give the U.S. government legal tools to try to freeze or seize assets linked to the group that are in the U.S. financial and banking systems.

While terrorism designations by the State and Treasury departments can have financial consequences, they do not give the U.S. military any legal basis to carry out operations against groups added to the list. The Trump administration has nevertheless emphasized such designations when announcing military actions against them.

Since last year, the Trump administration has added about 20 groups in Latin America to the U.S. list of terrorist groups, laying the groundwork for potential military strikes. Trump administration officials have compared the new “anti-cartel” push in Latin America to the military campaign against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Read more: New York Times