WASHINGTON — The powerful Ecuadorean gang leader Adolfo Macías Villamar has been extradited to the United States to face charges of drug and arms trafficking.

Known as "Fito", he was recaptured in June, almost a year after he escaped from a high-security prison where he was serving a 34-year sentence for a series of crimes.

He will appear in a US federal court on Monday, where he will plead not guilty to international charges of drug and weapons trafficking, his lawyer told Reuters.

Macías was leader of Los Choneros gang, which is linked to powerful criminal organisations from Mexico and the Balkans. He is also suspected of having ordered the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.

Los Choneros is blamed for Ecuador's transformation from a tourist haven to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the region.

More than 70% of all cocaine produced in the world currently passes through Ecuador's ports. The country is located between the world's two top cocaine exporters, Colombia and Peru.

In June, police tracked Macías down to what they described as an underground bunker below a luxury home in the city of Manta. He was taken to La Roca, a maximum security prison. At the time, Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa praised the security forces for capturing him and said that he would be extradited to the US.

The country's prison authority said he was taken out of prison in Ecuador earlier on Sunday to be handed over to US authorities.

"Mr Macías and I will appear tomorrow before the Brooklyn federal court ... where he will plead not guilty," his lawyer, Alexei Schacht, told Reuters. "After, he will be held in a to-be-determined prison."

Ecuadoreans voted in favor of allowing the extradition of citizens in a referendum called by President Noboa, who vowed to crack down on rising crime.

In March this year, Noboa told the BBC he wants US, European and Brazilian armies to join his "war" against criminal gangs. — BBC