Ecuadorian police arrested a woman in the parking lot of a shopping center in Guayaquil who was carrying explosives in a bag. She is presumed to belong to a criminal group, classified as "terrorist" by the government, Interior Minister John Reimberg reported Wednesday.

The official stated that the woman was A woman was arrested last night “in a shopping mall in northern Guayaquil,” the capital of Guayas province, one of the four provinces under a nighttime curfew from March 15th until the end of the month to combat insecurity.

Photographs released by the minister show police officers in the shopping mall parking lot at the moment they found the explosives.

Reimberg stated that the woman, allegedly a member of the 'Los Lobos' group, was caught red-handed “with 40 explosives and 15 meters of fuse inside a bag, which she intended to use to carry out attacks in that area of ??the city.”

Last night, also in Guayaquil and hours before the curfew began, individuals on a motorcycle shot and killed one person, while three others were wounded, in the heart of the city.

In addition to Guayas, the nighttime curfew is in effect in the provinces of Los Rios, Santo Domingo de los Andes, and Guayaquil.

Tsachilas and El Oro, the latter bordering Peru.

Ecuador has been living under a state of “internal armed conflict” since 2024, declared by President Daniel Noboa to intensify the fight against criminal gangs, which he began calling “terrorists.”

Despite this declaration, 2025 ended with a record number of homicides in Ecuador, totaling around 9,300, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.