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Jorge Bismarck Véliz España was an ambitious man growing up in Puerto Arturo, a neighborhood in the larger town of Chone. A hub of about 50,000 people located 40 kilometers inland from Ecuador’s Pacific coast, Chone was a busy trading spot for cattle ranchers and farmers.
During the 1990s, Véliz España made a name for himself as a drug trafficker who was not afraid to use violence to suit his own ends, according to a profile in the Ecuadorian newspaper El Diario. Relatives began to use his name to collect on debts in the town. His reputation earned him the alias “Teniente España” (Lieutenant España), or simply “El Chonero.”
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