A suspected gang assault on a pool hall in Ecuador overnight left seven people dead and four others injured, police reported on Saturday.
Footage shared on social media showed masked gunmen opening fire as people played billiards in Santo Domingo, about 160 kilometres west of Quito.
“This violent incident presumably stems from a territorial dispute between organised crime groups and armed factions,” said Police Colonel Beatriz Benavides.
Ecuador serves as a departure point for cocaine shipments bound for the United States and Europe and acts as a hub for criminal networks involved in extortion and contract killings, some linked to cartels in Mexico, Colombia, or Albania.
The late Friday shooting marked the fourth attack of its kind in recent weeks. In August, seven people were also killed in a pool hall in the same city.
According to the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organised Crime, the country recorded more than 4,600 homicides in the first half of the year, a 47 per cent rise compared with the same period in 2024.
In June, President Daniel Noboa’s government captured Ecuador’s top gang leader, who was extradited to the United States the following month to face drug and arms trafficking charges.