When Los Choneros leader Zambrano was killed in 2020, Los Chone Killers and several other gangs split off due to disagreements with the leadership of José Adolfo Macías Villamar.
[1] Clashes and massacres in prisons across Ecuador broke out in the wake of the split.
[2][3] On 28 September 2021, a dispute between Los Lobos and Los Choneros in the Litoral Penitentiary, Guayaquil, led to a riot that killed 123 inmates and injured over 80, becoming the deadliest prison riot in Ecuador's history.
[4] In that riot, members of the Los Tiguerones gang attacked inmates in pavilions 1 and 3 and beheaded five of them.
[5] Los Chone Killers and Tiguerones killed sixty-eight inmates in November 2021 at a prison riot in Litoral Penitentiary.