The body of the former leader of a notorious Ecuadorian gang has been stolen from a cemetery in Colombia to carry out ‘satanic ritual.’
Gangster Junior Roldán was a senior member of the Los Choneros prison gang in Ecuador, before being shot dead in May.
Police said the crypt where the remains of Júnior Roldán were laid to rest was broken into Tuesday night, September 12, at a gravesite in Envigado, a city in the department of Antioquia.
Workers entered the cemetery on Wednesday morning, September 13, and were alarmed that one of the entrance doors had been left opened.
A priest joined the workers for an inspection of the site and noticed that the crypt’s cement cover had been destroyed.
The Envigado police said Roldán’s body may have been taken by Los Choneros rivals or that it was exhumed for a satanic ritual.
Roldán was murdered in the Antioquia municipality of Fredonia on May 6.
Authorities approved his entombment in the cemetery because no one claimed his body.
Roldán was the co-founding leader of Los Choneros, one of the most powerful gangs in Ecuador that has links to Colombian and Mexican drug cartels and controls trafficking routes in Mexico and the United States.
The gang managed to strengthen its structure with its influence of the prison system in Ecuador before seeing that power slowly diminish as rival gang, the Lobos, linked with others criminal groups.
Roldán had been in prison for a list of crimes, including two murders, and in 2022 applied to be transferred to house arrest because he was suffering from arterial hypertension, diabetes, grade 3 hepatic steatosis, and liver cirrhosis.
A judge granted the release because the gang leader’s ‘life and health (were) at imminent risk.’
He was released from prison on December 15, 2022, and was arrested hours later after police found guns in a vehicle he was traveling on.
Roldán was released from jail on February 14 after a judge granted his application for habeas corpus and required him to wear an ankle monitor.
President Guillermo Lasso slammed the court for granting Roldan’s freedom.
‘The Government of Ecuador declared war on drug trafficking, organized crime, and anti-patriotic mafias that steal our peace and tranquility,’ Lasso said.
‘And now a corrupt prosecutor and a bad judge are trying to free one of the most dangerous criminals in the country: Júnior Alexander Roldán Paredes, alias Júnior.’
On March 23, an Ecuadorian judge declared him a fugitive when he removed the tracking device and went missing.
Roldán was nearly killed during a March 16 shootout that left five people dead and six wounded.
Colombian media outlets reported that Roldán hired a bodyguard, who betrayed and killed him.
