ICE detains Ecuadorian official who combated drug trafficking back home
U.S. immigration agents have detained a former interior minister from Ecuador living in South Florida as he faces allegations of being involved in the murder of a presidential candidate.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained José Ricardo Serrano Salgado on Aug. 7 when he left his home in Miami to get the mail. Serrano Salgado is currently being held at the Krome Detention Center near Miami, his friends and family told the Miami Herald.
On Monday, the same day Serrano Salgado had an immigration hearing at Krome, the Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office requested that he, along with other Ecuadorian politicians, face charges of being the masterminds in the 2023 murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Serrano Salgado had released a statement on X on June 25 denouncing a “setup” to incriminate him in the Villavicencio murder.
Serrano Salgado, who served as interior minister from 2011-16, asserted that he does not oversee Ecuador’s prison system or the police department. Instead, he said, he had fought against criminal gangs, including Ecuadorian drug-traffickers Los Lobos. He said that was the reason he had sought political asylum in the United States. However, experts on Ecuador say he continues to wield influence within the country’s intelligence system.
Serrano Salgado, 54, entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in May 2021 and applied for political asylum that October. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, his case remains pending, awaiting an in-person interview.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment, saying that due to operational security the agency had nothing to share at this time.
Serrano Salgado’s oldest child, Verónica Serrano, told the Herald he had sought asylum in the U.S. because he was in fear for his life in Ecuador. His brother, the photojournalist Juan Antonio Serrano, was killed in 2012. She said that her uncle’s murder had been in retaliation for her father’s work fighting the drug cartels.
“If my father steps foot in Ecuador, he will be murdered,” his daugher said. She added her family doesn’t trust the justice system in Ecuador, which she said is controlled by President Daniel Noboa’s. Serrano Salgado’s next hearing in Krome is scheduled for Aug. 25, while his asylum case will be heard on Sept. 11.
Serrano Salgado has served several roles in the Ecuadorian government, including as. minister of justice and labor as well as interior minister in the administration of Socialist President Rafael Correa. He also spent four years in the National Assembly of Ecuador and served as its president.
During his stint as interior minister, Serrano Salgado met with American officials from the State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration about how to combat organized crime and drug trafficking in Ecuador. In 2016, the DEA honored him in recognition of Ecuador’s drug-interdiction efforts.
Verónica Serrano described her father as a tireless fighter who came from a long line of lawyers who advocated for human rights and social justice. She said her father was among the few who dared to denounce the current government’s links to drug cartel trafficking in Ecuador, and said that her father would not have a fair and independent process in her home country if returned to face charges.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Ecuador in July and met with Noboa to discuss regional security issues, international law enforcement cooperation and restricting irregular immigration. Noem and Interior Minister John Reimberg signed an agreement on Aug. 1 that established a law enforcement exchange program between the U.S. and Ecuador.
Diego Vallejo Cevallos, a former advisor to Ecuador’s national secretary of management transparency who worked directly under Serrano Salgado, sent a letter to Noem on Aug. 11 requesting an investigation into what he described as “political corruption” involving Serrano Salgado and his connections during Correa’s administration.
“I witnessed many cases of political corruption that occurred during former President Rafael Correa’s government, so I dedicated myself to documenting them and filing complaints with various branches of the Ecuadorian justice system,” Vallejo Cevallos wrote. “These complaints led government authorities, under the leadership of Dr. José Ricardo Serrano Salgado, to collude in planting false evidence against me and imprisoning me. Their plan succeeded, and I was detained for approximately two years.”
Vallejo Cevallos’s letter concluded with a request for prompt measures to address the allegations brought against Serrano Salgado.
Although Serrano Salgado does not have any active arrest warrants in Ecuador and would not face immediate detention if he were returned home, he has been named in several ongoing investigations by the Attorney General’s Office.
The investigations involve allegations of forced financial contributions from interior ministry staff, possible involvement in the 2023 kidnapping of political activist Fernando Balda, the attempted murder of attorney Luigi García, alleged disclosure of confidential information, a bribery and influence-peddling complaint connected to the U.S. trial of former comptroller Carlos Pólit, and a 2025 investigation into his possible role in the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, who was shot to death after a campaign rally in Aug. 2023.
Most of those cases remain in preliminary stages without formal charges, according to local media in Ecuador.
This story was originally published August 21, 2025 at 5:13 PM.
