Soccer star Mario Pineida shot dead in Ecuador, police say

Ecuadorian police said Wednesday that Mario Pineida, a 33-year-old Barcelona defender from Guayaquil and former national team player, was shot dead in an apparent attack as violence escalates in the Andean nation.

Another person police did not identify also died in the incident and a third was injured.

Ecuador’s Interior Ministry confirmed Pineida’s death without providing details. Barcelona de Guayaquil said in a statement that its fans are saddened by the death of Pineida. “Rest in peace,” the team wrote in a separate social media post honoring Pineida.

Pineida played eight games for Ecuador but did not participate in the team’s qualification for the 2026 World Cup. His last game for Ecuador was in the 2021 Copa América, as a late substitute in a group stage match against Brazil. He also attended the 2017 edition.

Pineida began his professional career at Independiente del Valle, where he played from 2010 to 2015. He then moved to the club from the coastal city of Guayaquil in 2016 and won two league titles there. The defender also had a brief spell at Brazil’s Fluminense in 2022.

Ecuadorian media reported that the incident took place in the Samanes region on the northern edge of Guayaquil, which is 165 miles southwest of the capital Quito.

Playing soccer in Ecuador can be deadly, as match-fixing mafias are part of a global criminal empire that nets gangs about $1.7 trillion a year, according to a recent United Nations estimate.

In November, a 16-year-old soccer player from Independiente del Valle was killed by a stray bullet, also in Guayaquil. Miguel Nazareno was at home “when he unfortunately became a victim of the insecurity that affects our country,” the soccer team said in an Instagram post, citing a wave of criminal violence that began in Ecuador almost five years ago.

In October, Ecuadorian soccer player Bryan “Cuco” Angulo was shot in the foot while attending a training session.

Two months earlier, Maicol Valencia and Leandro Yépez, both Exapromo Costa players, and Jonathan González, from June 22, died from gunshot wounds.

Escalation of violence in Ecuador

Ecuador is expected to have its most violent year on record with more than 9,000 homicides, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. That figure was 7,063 violent deaths last year and a record 8,248 in 2023.

President Daniel Noboa has committed to fighting criminal organizations that have expanded their operations in Ecuadorian territory in relation to international drug cartels.

Since 2021, Ecuador has experienced increasing criminal violence by gangs operating in coordination with Colombians and mexican cartels involved in drug trafficking.

Strategically located between Colombia and Peru, two of the largest cocaine producers in the world, it has become an important narcotics transit center.

Noboa has deployed troops to combat the violence, with little effect.

In the first half of this year, homicides in Ecuador increased by 47% compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Organized Crime Observatory.

In October, an Ecuadorian judge was murdered while accompanying his children to school. Provincial police chief Colonel Giovanni Naranjo told reporters that The Wolves gang – designated as foreign terrorist organization by the United States, was suspected of the attack.

Also in October, authorities in Ecuador reported two attacks that left 14 people dead and 17 injured, and some of the victims showed signs of torture.

Criminal gang violence continues unabated after the recapture in June of the country’s largest drug trafficker, Adolfo Macias after his escape from a maximum security prison in 2024. In July, the Ecuadorian government Macías was extradited to the United States, where he faces multiple charges of drug and firearms trafficking.