Global News Podcast - Ecuadorian drug lord arrested

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Ecuador's Los Lobos drug cartel leader, Wilmer "Pipo" Chavarria, has been captured in Spain. He'd been hiding in Europe after faking his own death. The arrest came as Ecuadorians voted not to allow foreign military bases in their country. Also: President Trump calls for the release of the Epstein files; violence erupts in Bangladesh ahead of the deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's trial verdict; an auction of items from Nazi concentration camps is cancelled; Chile's election results; we visit the Amazon rainforest as COP30 debates soya beans; and Sky Sports ditches its "patronising and sexist" new TikTok.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Charlotte Gallagher, and in the early hours of Monday, the 17th of November, these are our main stories. The leader of one of Ecuador's biggest drug trafficking gangs, Wilmer Pippo Chavaria, is captured. Donald Trump calls for the Epstein files to be released, reversing his previous position. And a German auction of items from a Nazi concentration camp, is cancelled. Also in this podcast, we visit the Amazon rainforest as COP 30 debates Sawyer Beans.

We can see this vast port complex. There are three huge silos where they store the beans. And then a giant, everything is huge here, a giant sort of conveyor belt that goes out on a huge bridge. Ecuadorians have voted not to allow foreign military bases. back into their country. Sunday's referendum was proposed by the right-wing government as part of efforts to combat rising gang violence. The result is a blow for President Daniel Naboer,

who'd been pushing for help from the United States. But he did claim another win, announcing that the leader of one of Ecuador's biggest drug cartels had been captured. We have captured the highest value target on the list of criminals who harm us so much and harm the entire region, which is people. Supreme Leader of Los Lobos. This was thanks to international cooperation with Spain and the United

States. Wilmot Pippo Chavaria was detained in the Spanish city of Malaga, four years after faking his own death during the COVID pandemic. He'd been hiding in Europe while continuing to control criminal operations back home. Many Los Lobos members are in jail and the gang is thought to have instigated some of Ecuador's bloodiest prison riots as well as planning murders to be committed outside the jail walls. Our Latin America expert, Luis Fajado, told me more about the arrest. People has been described as the number one target for Ecuadorian security forces. According to government officials, he's suspected of being involved in at least 400 deaths.

Also, he has been leading this very violent organization, Los Lois, as you described, originally involved in prison crimes, expanding into becoming a major criminal organization. It has actually been designated as a foreign terror organization by the U.S. It is thought to be closely involved in drug trafficking with Mexican cartels like the Halisco New Generation Cartel. So the government of Daniel Novoa, who arrived in office, promising a big crackdown on these crime organizations, was certainly claiming a big success with the arrest of Alia's people in Spain. I mean, I guess the authorities will say, you know, we've cut the head off the snake. But do you know,

Do they just replace this man, Los Lobos? Do they have people kind of in the running to replace him and then just carry on with everything that they're doing? That has certainly been the case in many occasions when these high-profile arrests occur. There does not seem to be a major, major collapse in the profit for these organizations. What some people even fear is that this so-called vacuum of power

in one of these criminal organizations could actually intensify violence, at least in the short run, as other members of these organizations try to occupy the position earlier held by someone like people. So it is very difficult to predict that drug trafficking in Ecuador is going to substantially decrease in the short run. And unfortunately, the country still faces a huge amount of drug-related violence, as has been the case in the last few years.

Yeah, because you've been telling us before about how, you know, you associate drug cartels with Colombia, and Mexico, but Ecuador has this huge problem as well. That's right. Ecuador for many years had been seen as an oasis of relative peace in South America with all these drug-related incidents happening around the neighboring countries. However, Colombian groups associated with Mexican drug cartels have used Ecuador as a platform for exporting cocaine, which a lot of it is not produced in Ecuador. It's in fact brought in from Colombia.

Ecuador has become a crucial point in the logistics of exporting cocaine to the United States, to Europe, even to Asia. That is also why President Noah has been asking for foreign help. He has been trying to establish ties with countries like Israel and like the U.S. because he thinks, and he has said that Ecuador needs all the help that you get to face these criminal organizations. Luis Fahado. Much like Ecuador, voters in Chile are concerned about security, crime and immigration. And after a first round of voting in their presidential election, the candidate from the governing leftist coalition, Jeanette Hara, will face the right winger Jose Antonio cast in a

runoff vote. Our reporter in Santiago, Daniel Pardo, told me more about the vote. The first round made one thing clear. Chilians want new solutions. They are tired of the cultural battles and are deeply skeptical of these strategies that they already know. And that's interesting to show through the man who's not going to be in the second round. Franco Parisi, who's the big headliner right now because he's a pragmatic economist focused on everyday problems rather than ideological fights. And he won't be in the run of, but it's poised to become an influential figure in the coming years, especially if his coalition secures a strong presence in Congress. Now, Jose Antonio Cast now heads into the second round as the clear front runner.

and his challenge is to unite the rest of the right without losing the moderation he projected during the whole campaign. It seems like his main objective is to prevent the left from framing the runoff as a referendum on him and his radical positions. Now, on the other side, you have a left-win coalition that appears that fallen short of the 30% of the vote, which leaves it in a very weak position for the second round. It is a significant setback for the government of Gabriel Boric, which has failed to deliver on the high expectations it said for years ago. And what is this election being fought on? What are the issues that are really mattering to voters? Well, it seems to me that it's less ideological and more pragmatic.

They want solutions. The first topic that it's been talking about is crime. Chile has been one of the least violent countries in Latin America for years. years, but the homicite rate doubled in the last decade. So that has generated an atmosphere of fear among Chileans. Then you have the economy. Most Chileans, they don't want a radical change of the economic system, but they want solutions that are pragmatic. They have to do with pensions, with paying day-to-day life. And you said the homicide rate had doubled. What's that down to? Is that organized crime? Because I know Mexicans have been protesting against their government

saying, look, we need to get a grip on the murder rate in Mexico, cartels are having too much influence in this country. Is that a similar kind of situation that's bubbling away in Chile as well? It's interesting to compare it with Mexico because obviously the homicide rate, for instance, is far less here in Chile. Chile still is one of the least violent countries in Latin America. However, it doubled the homicide rate in the past decade and they've started to see cases that are new for Chileans, you know, cases of murdering in the street, people who are kidnapped, extortion. For a country that has been fearful of that idea for many decades, seeing it in the press for the past years, it's a huge development and it has generated the idea that this campaign is about

fear. That was Daniel Pardo. President Trump has been under constant pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to release all U.S. Justice Department files on the investigation into the dead sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. And now ahead of a vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday to order their release, he's had a change of heart and Mr. Trump is calling on Republicans to back it, saying there's nothing to hide and it's a Democrat hoax. It comes after President Trump appeared to be angered that some Republicans were backing the bill, including his former ally, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green. He's even started calling her Marjorie Trater Green. For more on their fallout, here's our North America correspondent, Sean Dilley.

All right, Georgia. We know what we're going to do in 2024. We're going to re-elect our favorite president. The staunchest of allies. Marjorie Taylor Green was a leading light of the MAGA movement. And he was her most influential backer. But now that closest of ties lies in tatters on the floor. You got a lot of courage, that one. Last Wednesday, Marjorie Taylor Green was one of four House Republicans to back a Democrat petition to attempt to force the release of the U.S. government's Epstein files. She believes it's her call for publication that soured the relationship. I stand with these women.

I stand with rape victims. I stand with children who are in terrible sex abuse situations. And I stand with survivors of trafficking and those that are trapped in. and sex trafficking. Donald Trump has never denied that he and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were friends, but he says they fell out in the early 2000s, well before the financier's 2008 convictions. Last week, Democrats published three emails mentioning Donald Trump,

suggesting he spent hours with one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Dufre. The White House were quick to point to previous comments by Ms. Dufre saying Mr. Trump had never done anything wrong. in her dealings with him. Republican members of Congress responded by releasing more than 20,000 pages of documents from the Epstein estate. Two days after Green supported the Democrat move

to release the Epstein files, the president described her as wacky and a ranting lunatic. He said she was a disgrace and branded her traitor green. He called me a traitor and that is so extremely wrong and those are the types of words use that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger.

Many here have found the fallout genuinely shocking. Marjorie Taylor Green continued to enjoy Donald Trump's support even after she had promoted an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, something she since apologized for, and she was perhaps his loudest supporter after a congressional committee accused him of inciting violence here at the Capitol on January 6th, something he's always denied doing. But whatever the two may think about each other,

than now, she's not the only Republican to call for the release of those Epstein files. Marjorie Taylor Green is not anywhere. I mean, she is a very different thinking than I have. The president hasn't spelt out why the rift has happened. Marjorie Taylor Green says she still supports the president and his administration. But Donald Trump has made it clear he no longer supports her and he will back any Republican who runs against her in Georgia at next year's midterm elections. That was Sean Dilley reporting. A planned auction in Germany of artefacts from prisoners of Nazi concentration camps

has been cancelled following backlash and political pressure. Auctions of Nazi memorabilia have been held before, against the wishes of many. But this one attracted extra criticism because of the personal nature of the items for sale, as Duncan Kennedy reports. According to German media reports, more than 600 items from a private collection were due to be put up for sale at the Feltzman auction house in Noyngen. near Dusseldorf. They included a letter from a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp

and a medical diagnosis document about forced sterilisation of a prisoner from the Dachau concentration camp. But the sale has triggered a number of protests, ranging from the Polish government to Holocaust survivors' groups. Poland's foreign minister Radislav Sikorsky called the auction offensive, adding that respect for victims requires the dignity of silence, not the din of commerce. Christopher Heipner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, a Berlin-based group of survivors, was asked for his reaction when he first heard about the auction. I'm in a close contact with survivors, with families of survivors for many years, and I know how vulnerable they are, even if in their older years,

they are very close to what has happened to them in their use and what has changed all their lives. So it's a problem which is dealing with human beings, with their relatives, with their fear and their tortures. And this is why it made me really angry and sad. There's been no public response from the auction house. Poland's culture minister said her ministry would investigate the provenance of the artefacts

to determine whether any should be returned. That was Duncan Kennedy. Still to come. We are normal people and we don't have to have everything related to us with like Laboubu, Marcha, Hot Girl Walk, makes my blood boil. A TikTok channel made for female sports fans is labelled sexist. Violence has erupted in Bangladesh in the run-up to the verdict in the case against a former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who's being tried in absentia because she's fled to India.

Prosecutors are demanding she be given the death penalty for crimes against humanity in connection with the deaths of hundreds of students drawing a crackdown on anti-government protests last year. A verdict is expected shortly. Our correspondent, Arunaday Mukaji, gave me this update from outside court. I've been in Dhaka since late last night and what I have seen is a visible presence of security. I can see in front of me as I walk just outside of the court premises, layers of police personnel, including riot control officials who are present here in riot gear. Some of them are armed as well. There is an armored vehicle just a few meters away from me as well. So when you walk or dry it in towards the premises, there is a

sense, a visible sense of heightened security. We've also got reports, which we tried to confirm with the police, who said that they've heard of a crude bomb explosion taking place earlier this morning. No one was injured in that, but they're investigating it further. So they're also being very cautious about the information that they're giving out. But in the run-up to today, what is also important to highlight is that there have been several detentions of supporters of the Awami League Party to which Sheikh Hasina belonged, the deposed Prime Minister. They were arrested on suspicion of planning unrest in the run-up to this verdict, which is why things are tense because they are anticipating some sort of unrest

depending on what the verdict is. And given that Sheikh Hasina has already fled to India, what will happen if she's found guilty? Because I imagine she will have no intention of going back to Bangladesh. That's right. And it remains to be seen, really, isn't it? Because what it will do is it will give the Bangladeshi authorities sort of legal ammunition to further try and put more pressure on Indian authorities

to allow Sheikh Hasina into Bangladesh. So that will be an interesting sort of dynamic. to watch out for given the kind of close relations that Sheikh Hasina shared with the Indian establishment over several years while she was in power, which is why she has found herself in India since she fled Bangladesh last year. What is also important to watch out for is what happens in the political space here in Bangladesh? At the moment, there's a caretaker government. Elections are scheduled for February next year. What happens to the Bangladeshi political space given that the Awami League of Sheikh Hasina is not allowed to contest? And, you know, we're talking about a politician like Sheikh Hasina, who's who was Prime Minister for 15 years. It's a very, very crucial verdict which is going to really define what politics will look like in the coming months in Bangladesh.

And I remember those protests happening and all those students being killed and how shocking it was to watch, you know, from the other side of the world. I imagine that's really traumatised so many people in Bangladesh. Which is why it is a sensitive trial, which is why we've seen this heightened security as well,

given just the sheer number of people killed. The UN put the number at 1,400, some of the estimates, which is why this trial is taking place, alleging that Sheikh Hasina is guilty of crimes against humanity. So this is an emotive issue. This is something that is likely to sort of have ramifications, which is what we're going to watch out for. Arunaday Mukaji. One of the key issues being discussed at this year's COP summit in Brazil is soyobines. It's the host country's largest agricultural export, But growing soya damages the Amazon rainforest. A ban known as the soy moratorium stops the sale of soy beans

grown on Amazon land deforested after 2008. But some now want to overturn it. Our climate editor, Justin Rowlett, visited the Amazon to see the industry's impact. Well, I'm in a stand of rainforest just outside the Amazon port city of Santerham. And it's dark down here underneath the dense canopy. but as I make my way through to the edge of this, it opens up onto a huge soya field, bright yellow, in the sun.

And until the soy moratorium, forest clearance for farms like this was one of the main drivers of deforestation. Soya is a key ingredient in animal and fish feeds and global demand is rising. To get a sense of the scale of the industry, we are heading out onto the Amazon River itself. The flatland around here is perfect for soy production. And we can see this vast port complex. There are three huge silos where they store the beans.

A giant sort of conveyor belt that goes out on a huge bridge to the deeper water where there's a docking complex. And there's a cargo ship in there now. We can see it being filled with soy, a dust rising up. And there was outrage when this port was built a couple of decades ago, which helped create the pressure for the Sawyer moratorium, which was a landmark agreement where farmers, environmental groups, and international food companies, including some of the biggest players,

companies like McDonald's, agreed not to buy Sawyer from newly deforested Amazon land. But now members of Brazil's powerful agricultural lobby, backed by some politicians, are pushing to scratch. wrap the arrangement, claiming it represents an unfair cartel. Van der Leigh Atayides is president of the Soy Farmers Association of Parastate, one of the main soy growing areas. Our state has a lot of room to grow, and the soy moratorium is working against this development. How does this help the environment? I can't plant soybeans, but I can use the same land to plant corn, rice, cotton, other crops.

Environmental campaigners say ending the ban would have catastrophic impact on the Amazon. Bell Lion is the chief advisor on Latin America at the World Wildlife Fund, one of the original signatories to the Soy Moratorium. If the Amazon Soy Moratorium comes to an end, it would be a disaster for the Amazon, for his people and for the world, because he could open up an area of the size of Portugal for deforestation. There is still some pristine forest in this region. But even where the trees are still standing, deforestation has an impact.

It reduces the amount of moisture in the air. We are climbing the 15 stories up a 45 metre tower in a protected rainforest reserve. It is bristling with high-tech sensors which have been measuring evaporation, CO2 levels, solar radiation, and much more, for more than 27 years. The project is run by scientist Bruce Fosberg. Because there's less rainfall, the forest that's still around, the living forest,

is closing down and not producing rainfall anymore, not producing water vapor. We're already starting to see some of the taller trees dying and losing their capacity to maintain themselves. Fosberg fears that as the trees begin to die, it could push the rainforest in this region towards a tipping point. And that was Justin Rowlett. All eyes are on the skies in Iran as the authorities have sprayed clouds with chemicals to induce rain in an attempt to combat the country's worst drought in years.

The process is known as cloud seeding and is a technique that's been around for decades. Sasha Slicketer reports. Cloud seeding involves spraying particles, such as silver iodide and other salts, into clouds from aircraft to trigger rain. The first cloud seeding flight was conducted in the Urmere Lake Basin in the northwest. What was once Iran's biggest lake has now largely dried out, turning into a vast salt bed. Further flights are planned in east and west-Azerbaijan provinces. Iranian meteorologists are reporting that there now has been rain in the west and northwest. Footage shows snow falling on a ski resort north of Tehran for the first time this year.

2025 has seen an 89% drop in rainfall, compared with a long-term average. Iran is currently going through the driest autumn in half a century. Earlier this month, President Massoud Pazashkian warned that without rain before winter, Tehran could face evacuation. Iran is a largely arid country, and heat waves will only exacerbate. with climate change. Sasha Slichter. Finally, just three days

after a British sports channel launched a TikTok to build a welcoming community for female sports fans, it scrapped the whole project and removed posts described as patronising and sexist. Sky Sports Halo shared content

featuring pink texts, love hearts and Gen Z references. Norn Angie reports. It was built as Sky Sports Little Sister. A TikTok channel specifically targeting female sports fans. Following sports, it's not just about the score. It's community.

No, we have to pause it. We don't just watch. We live it. But its pink branding and choice of content quickly faced a backlash. One video showed the Manchester City striker Erling Harland on the pitch with the caption,

how the matcher and hot girl walk combo hits in a pink font. Social media users accused the channel of being sexist and condescending and warned it risk undermining of the progress made in recent years to shine a spotlight on women's sport. Others questioned how it was approved in the first place. Critics included the TikToker Kimmy, who posts about Formula One.

At least they listen to us. Why do we need a separate platform? We don't need one. We would like to just be treated as normal people because guess what? We are normal people. We are normal people. And we don't have to have everything related to us with, like, La Boo Boo, Macha, hot girl, walk, makes my blood boil.

Now, just three days after its launch, Halo has been scrapped. A statement published on the page last night read, We've listened, we didn't get it right. Sky Sports said it remained as committed as ever to creating spaces where fans felt included and inspired. Norn Angie. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later.

If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is Global Podcast. podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Chris Gazzaris. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Charlotte Gallagher. Until next time, goodbye.