ICE says Jordán’s immediate detention was an immigration enforcement action rather than an arrest on Ecuador’s murder charges.
“Xavier Edmundo Jordan Mendoza, a criminal illegal alien with prior arrests for grand theft and organized fraud, as well as a warrant for organized crime from his home country of Ecuador,” an ICE spokesperson said following the arrest.
According to ICE spokesman Néstor Yglesias, Jordán entered the United States in February 2020 and was authorized to remain until August of that year. ICE says he remained in the country after that authorization expired and is now being held while immigration proceedings move forward.
Jordán’s attorneys tell a different side of the immigration story.
His Ecuadorian attorney, Juan Carlos Salazar, has said Jordán sought asylum in the United States and had an immigration hearing scheduled for May 2027. His lawyers nevertheless confirmed that the latest detention was carried out by U.S. immigration authorities.
After his arrest in Florida, Jordán was transferred to the Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, where ICE records showed him remaining in federal immigration custody.
But the accusations waiting for Jordán in Ecuador are considerably more serious.
Ecuadorian authorities have accused him of involvement in two major criminal cases, including the sprawling Metástasis organized-crime investigation and the assassination of Villavicencio.
Ecuador’s National Court formally sought Jordán’s extradition from the United States in July as part of the Metástasis proceedings. He is also under investigation over Villavicencio’s killing.
Villavicencio, a former journalist and member of Ecuador’s National Assembly, had built his public profile investigating corruption and alleged relationships between government figures and organized crime.
After Ecuador’s National Assembly was dissolved in 2023, Villavicencio entered the country’s snap presidential election.
He never made it to Election Day.
On August 9, 2023, Villavicencio was leaving a campaign event in Quito when gunmen opened fire. The 59-year-old candidate was killed just days before Ecuadorians were scheduled to cast their ballots.
The brazen assassination sent shockwaves through a country already struggling with escalating violence tied to powerful criminal organizations.
Investigators subsequently turned their attention from the gunmen to the people allegedly responsible for organizing the murder.
Ecuadorian prosecutors have accused Jordán and several others of involvement at the planning level of the assassination. Those accusations remain allegations and have not resulted in a conviction against Jordán.
The broader case has included other prominent names from Ecuadorian politics and business as investigators attempt to determine who financed and ordered the killing.
Several people have already been convicted over their roles in Villavicencio’s assassination, but authorities have continued pursuing suspects they believe were involved further up the chain.
Jordán has also been tied to Ecuador’s Metástasis investigation, which centers on allegations that organized crime penetrated parts of the country’s judicial and government institutions. Ecuador formally asked the United States to extradite him in connection with that case earlier this year.
His capture by ICE could now dramatically change the situation.
For years, Jordán had remained in the United States while Ecuadorian authorities pursued criminal proceedings against him. Now he is physically in federal custody while his immigration case plays out.
Ecuadorian Interior Minister John Reimberg said following the arrest that his government has supplied U.S. authorities with documentation concerning Jordán and hopes he can be returned to Ecuador quickly.
Whether that happens through deportation, extradition, or another legal mechanism remains to be seen.
For now, however, one of the men Ecuadorian prosecutors accuse of helping orchestrate one of the country’s most notorious political assassinations is no longer living freely in the United States.
He is sitting in ICE custody.
