Five human heads were found hung on display at a tourist beach in Ecuador on Sunday, police said, as the country reels from a wave of gang violence.
Images on social media showed five heads tied with ropes on two wooden posts on the beach in Puerto Lopez, a popular whale watching destination in the country's southwest.
Drug-trafficking networks with links to transnational cartels are active in the area and have used fishermen and their small boats for their illicit activities, according to authorities.
Images published by Ecuadorian media outlets showed a warning sign next to the heads directed at alleged extortionists of fishermen in the small fishing port of Puerto Lopez.
The horrific scene is now being probed by police in the southwest of the country, with police speculating that the display was carried out by organised crime gangs embroiled in Ecuador's criminal underbelly.
It follows four years of unrest in the country, after Ecuador became a logistical centre for the storage and distribution of drugs servicing South America.
Drug-trafficking networks have long plagued the country, with cartels known to be operating in the area, with 9,000 murders recorded across the country in 2025.
At the same beach in December, at least nine people, including a baby, were killed in violence that authorities blamed on clashes between local gangs.
Ecuador ended 2025 as its most violent year on record, with a homicide rate of 52 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organised Crime. – January 12, 2026
