Mexico arrests suspect wanted in the 2023 killing of Ecuadorian candidate and sends him to Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A man who is wanted in Colombia and Ecuador for the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito in 2023 was arrested in Mexico and transferred to Colombia, authorities said Wednesday.

Ángel Esteban Aguilar Morales, an Ecuadorian national, arrived in Bogota on Wednesday, where he was intercepted at El Dorado Airport by Colombia’s migration authorities. No details were immediately provided about his immigration status or whether he was formally extradited.

Aguilar, known as “Lobo Menor,” is one of the alleged ringleaders of the Ecuadorian criminal gang “Los Lobos” and one of the country’s most-wanted fugitives, subject to an Interpol Red Notice — a global alert used to locate fugitives worldwide.

Mexican officials said that Aguilar was detected by authorities the moment he entered the country, so he was placed under real-time surveillance. Subsequently, using intelligence provided by Colombia, authorities said they obtained information that allowed them to pinpoint his location in Mexico City.

The arrest in Mexico — which authorities said was carried out without the “use of violence” — resulted in Aguilar being placed in the custody of the National Migration Institute to determine his legal status within the country, security officials said, without specifying if he had been deported.

“The individual was attempting to evade immigration controls by using a false identity as a Colombian citizen,” the Colombian migration agency said in a statement.

In April 2024, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with Ecuador following a military raid on the Mexican Embassy in Quito. The operation targeted former Vice President Jorge Glas, a corruption suspect who had been seeking asylum there since late 2023.

Representatives for Colombia’s foreign ministry and Colombia's migration agency didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the Colombian police, Aguilar had reportedly entered Mexico from Medellin, Colombia, using a forged passport with the “express purpose of strengthening criminal networks in the region.”

On X, Colombian President Gustavo Petro highlighted the police cooperation between Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico, hailing it as “a significant blow against transnational organized crime.”

In February, the Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office presented new evidence seeking to formally link three individuals — including Aguilar — to the Villavicencio case. These individuals allegedly played a logistical and operational role in the killing on Aug. 9, 2023, when the then presidential candidate was leaving a political rally in the northern sector of the capital.

In addition to the Villavicencio case, the police indicated that “Lobo Menor” allegedly has ties to Mexican cartels and to Néstor Gregorio Vera, known as Iván Mordisco — the leader of a dissident faction of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group, whose members didn't adhere to a peace agreement signed with Colombia's government in 2016.

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FILE - Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio waves an Ecuadorean flag during a campaign event at a school minutes before he was shot to death, in Quito, Ecuador, Aug. 9, 2023. (API via AP File)

FILE - Amanda Villavicencio, the daughter of murdered presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, protests with other members of her family outside the court where suspects in her father's murder are being tried, in Quito, Ecuador, June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department has slashed by about 80% the fee for Americans to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship.

After years of legal battles with several groups representing Americans wanting to give up their citizenship, the department on Friday published a final rule in the Federal Register that reduces the cost from $2,350 to $450.

The new fee, effective April 13, had been promised in 2023 but had never been implemented. The cost is now the same as it was when the State Department first started charging Americans to formally renounce their citizenship in 2010.

Renouncing U.S. citizenship can be an intensive and lengthy process. Applicants must repeatedly confirm in multiple written and verbal attestations to a State Department consular officer that they understand the implications of the step before being allowed to take a formal oath of renunciation. It must then be reviewed by the department.

The fee was raised from $450 to $2,350 in 2015 to cover the administrative expenses as the number of people wanting to renounce their citizenship surged in part due to new U.S. tax reporting requirements for American expatriates that angered many.

That dramatic fee increase drew significant opposition from groups such as the France-based Association of Accidental Americans, which represents people mainly living abroad whose U.S. citizenship is due purely to their having been born in the United States.

The association filed several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the fee, including one that remains pending that argues there should be no cost at all for renouncing one’s citizenship.

“The Association of Accidental Americans welcomes this decision, which acknowledges the necessity of making this fundamental right accessible to all,” its president, Fabien Lehagre, said in a statement. “This victory is the direct result of six years of relentless legal action and advocacy.”

In court, the association said since the 2023 announcement that the fee would be reduced at least 8,755 Americans had paid the full $2,350 to renounce their citizenship. The State Department did not provide numbers for the total number of Americans who have renounced their citizenship.

This story has been corrected to reflect that the reduced fees are effective on April 13, not March 13.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a working lunch at the Shield of the Americas Summit, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)