Five human heads were found hanging from ropes on a beach in southwestern Ecuador, police said Sunday, in a case that authorities linked to criminal violence tied to drug trafficking.
The incident was reported near Puerto López, a small fishing port in Manabí province. Ecuadorian media outlets published images showing the bloody scene, and a warning sign was posted next to the heads directed at alleged extortionists of fishermen.
Police said the ropes were fixed to wooden poles on the beach. A police report attributed the incident to a conflict between criminal groups.
Authorities said drug-trafficking networks with links to transnational cartels are active in the area and have used fishermen and their small boats for illicit activities. They said violent episodes across Manabí have been triggered by a dispute for territory and control of drug-trafficking routes.
Police said they had carried out control and surveillance operations in Puerto López on Saturday. The renewed activity came as Ecuador continues to enforce a state of emergency in nine of its 24 provinces, including Manabí, with the measure aimed at containing the spiral of violence and restricting certain civil rights.
Police controls in Puerto López increased after a massacre left six people dead two weeks earlier. A second armed attack three days later left the same number of people dead in Manta, also in Manabí province.
The violence in Ecuador has been ongoing for more than four years, the report said, after the country became a logistical center for storage and distribution of drugs that enter mainly through the northern border with Colombia and the southern border with Peru. The report said 2025 was Ecuador’s most violent year on record, with more than 9,000 homicides, surpassing the record set in 2023, when there were 8,248 deaths.