Ecuador’s President, Daniel Noboa, has alleged a fresh attempt on his life after receiving chocolate and jam suspected to have been laced with toxic substances at a public event.
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Noboa said laboratory tests confirmed the presence of three “highly concentrated” chemical toxins in the sweets, stressing that the contamination was “not accidental.”
“The toxic substances could not have come from the products themselves or their packaging. We have proof to back this up,” the 37-year-old president stated.
Ecuador’s military security agency has since filed a formal complaint with the public prosecutor’s office as investigations continue.
This marks the second reported attempt on Noboa’s life in less than a month. Earlier in October, the government alleged that protesters attacked the president’s convoy, leaving his vehicle with what officials described as “bullet marks.” Defence Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo at the time called it an “assassination attempt,” though no bullet casings were found at the scene.
The latest claim comes amid nationwide unrest led by the country’s largest Indigenous organisation, Conaie, which has staged road blockades and demonstrations in several provinces — including Pichincha, the capital region — over rising fuel prices.
Some political analysts have suggested that Noboa’s repeated claims of assassination attempts could be an attempt to sway public sympathy ahead of a November 16 referendum that seeks to grant him powers to implement tougher anti-drug and security reforms.
But Noboa insists the threats are real
“No one throws a Molotov cocktail at themselves, poisons themselves with chocolate, or throws stones at themselves,” he said.
Once considered one of Latin America’s safest nations, Ecuador has in recent years become a major transit hub for cocaine trafficked from Colombia and Peru. The resulting surge in drug-related crime has fuelled **llrising murders, car bombings, and prison violence, pushing the young president to campaign on restoring law and order.
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