Probe continues after 'Brit is LYNCHED and burned alive in Ecuador' (2025)

An investigation has been launched into the vicious murder of a man in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, allegedly carried out by a baying mob seeking justice over an alleged shooting.

The crowd allegedly lynched the man, who has been identified in local reports as a British national,and burned him alive after storming a police station where he had been taken into custody.

The unnamed male, widely reported to be 'English', was held by uniformed officers on suspicion of shooting a local man dead, reports said.

But six hours after his arrest a crowd stormed the police station, dragged him onto the street and and set him alight in front of officers who said they were afraid to intervene.

A sourcetold MailOnline that the UK's Foreign Office is following up on these reports, and that it is working with local authorities to confirm details of the man's murder.

Respected Ecuadorian newspaper Ecuavisa said the horror killing happened in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve in Ecuador's Amazon region, which is a popular eco-tourism area.

It is the second largest reserve of the South American country's 56 national parks and protected areas, and is located in the Putamayo Canton in Sucumbios Province.

The British national is said to have been handed over to police by locals around 6am local time on Sunday before being murdered just after midday.

Do you know what happened? Email: perkin.amalaraj@mailonline.co.uk

Ecuadorian newspaper Extrareported officers who arrested him decided not to intervene when a baying mob forced their way into the police station ahead of his transfer out of the area.

They stood back, the newspaper said, in order to avoid being attacked themselves and to avoid additional damage to state property.

It said police reinforcements had taken time to reach the area because of its remoteness and difficult access.

A local TV station, reporting on the two deaths, said: 'In the early hours of Sunday, April 20, in the parish of Playas de Cuyabeno, at the closure of an event that took place for the anniversary of the Kichwa community, an incident occurred where as a result two people died.

'Those two people were a community member from the area and another person of British nationality who died due to the severity of his burns.'

The Ecuadorian man killed has been named locally as Rodrigo Chavez.

A third man was reportedly arrested over the Briton's killing.

Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo reported that police were yet to issue a statement, as they were still gathering information on the case.

Violence in the Amazonian province where the lynching reportedly happened has dramatically escalated as gangs demonstrate their brutal influence, leaving behind bullet-ridden and tied up bodies, with victims often showing signs of torture.

Local authorities declared a state of emergency last year after 159 people were killed in Sucumbios alone, a nearly 70 per cent increase in violent deaths in the region, most of which police say are gang-related as the groups battle for territory.

The Foreign Office warns against 'all but essential travel' to scenic areas around the Ecuador-Colombia border like the Sucumbios province 'due to the presence of organised crime linked to the production and trafficking of drugs'.

Latin America has for decades been synonymous with the drug trade thanks to ruthless cartels and criminal gangs whose power and brutality cannot by tamed by the government or the armed forces.

Some countries like Ecuador had managed to remain relatively peaceful for decades, despite bordering the notorious cocaine hotspots of Colombia and Peru.

But the coastal nation has seen murder rates soar in recent years as drug lords and criminal masterminds dug their hooks into fresh territory and exploited its ports for maximum profit.

Amazon

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