ICE deported a former Ecuadorian interior minister despite a judge’s order blocking his removal over torture fears.
José Serrano, who held the post from 2012 to 2016 under leftist ex-President Rafael Correa, was put on a plane Friday and sent back to Ecuador, where he now sits in the notorious El Encuentro mega-prison. President Daniel Noboa, 37, promptly took to X to announce the development and taunt his political rival.
“We said it, we delivered. José Serrano, Rafael Correa’s Interior Minister, is the new guest at El Encuentro,” Noboa wrote.
Noboa did not stop at Serrano. He also fired a warning at Correa himself, the former president who governed from 2007 to 2017 and now lives in Belgium with his family, where he was granted asylum after an Ecuadorian court convicted him in absentia in 2020 for receiving bribes for public contracts.
“It’s your turn any moment now. @mashirafael,” Noboa wrote.
Serrano’s legal troubles in Ecuador center on the Aug. 9, 2023, assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was gunned down by six Colombian assassins after a campaign rally in Quito. The killing came just 11 days before the first round of special general elections called after the National Assembly was dissolved that May. Incumbent President Guillermo Lasso was eligible to run but chose not to, and Noboa placed second to Luisa González before defeating her in the runoff.
Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office formally accused Serrano and six others, including Los Lobos cartel leader Wilmer ‘Pipo’ Chavarría, on Aug. 6 of this year for their roles in the assassination. Authorities allege Serrano filtered information to Los Lobos regarding Villavicencio’s movements.
“This event struck at the foundations of the rule of law, such as freedom of expression (…) and the security of political participation,” lead prosecutor Ana Hidalgo said.
Chavarría, who had faked his death, was arrested in Spain in November 2025 and is awaiting extradition. Five people tied to Los Lobos were convicted in 2024 for their roles in the crime, and the Colombian assassins themselves were found dead at a Guayaquil jail in October 2023.
Serrano’s path to US detention began when he arrived on a tourist visa in May 2021 and applied for asylum five months later. ICE arrested him at his Miami home on Aug. 7. US Immigration Judge Romy Lerner denied his asylum case during a May 13 hearing but suspended his deportation order under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which prohibits returning persons at risk of torture or other cruel punishments. ICE deported him anyway.
“Today, @DHSgov deported José Serrano, who was wanted by INTERPOL and faced charges in Ecuador for corruption and ties to cartels,” Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Pablo Segura wrote on X.
Serrano also served as president of Ecuador’s National Assembly from 2017 to 2018, a period that bridged the Correa administration and the early tenure of his successor. His prosecution represents a widening of the Villavicencio case beyond the gunmen and cartel operatives initially targeted, reaching into the upper ranks of the prior government’s security apparatus.
Noboa’s public gloating over Serrano’s imprisonment signals the continued political volatility surrounding the assassination, which has reshaped Ecuador’s electoral landscape and intensified scrutiny of officials who served during Correa’s decade in power.
Chavarría’s extradition from Spain remains pending.