WikiLeaks continues to drop files from its trove of diplomatic cables, but for those who can't sit through a quarter-million documents leaked at a slow pace the story has quickly turned from gossip about foreign leaders to gossip about the site's elusive (though certainly not quiet) leader Julian Assange. Yesterday Interpol put the 39-year-old Australian on its most-wanted list for questioning regarding rape charges he is facing in Sweden (his lawyers claim he is being unjustly persecuted) and Ecuador rescinded its offer of safe haven, all of which has his mother quiet upset. more ›

Jorge Martinez, the bread deliveryman fatally shot by a rooftop gunman in Gravesend Saturday night, always wanted to be buried in his home country of Ecuador. And now, his family is trying to scrape together the funds to send his body there. His 16-year-old daughter Jenniffer Martinez told the Daily News, "My dad wanted to be buried in Ecuador next to his father. His mom, sister, aunts, cousins—his entire family is there...That's what he wanted. We want to bury him in peace." more ›

A storefront pastor has been sentenced to two to six years in prison after swindling more than 100 immigrants with promises of U.S. visas and green cards. Gregorio Gonzalez, 57, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to collecting more than $840,000, mainly from Ecuadorian immigrants who visited him at the Iglesia Pentecostal Roca de Salvacion Eterna in Corona, according to 1010WINS. "He took our money," 27-year-old office cleaner Viviana Ordonez told the Daily News. "He took our trust in him. We right now have nothing. We don't have hope. We want justice." After Gonzalez gets out of prison, he will face deportation proceedings. more ›

Police have arrested and received a confession out of one of two suspects in the hate crime killing of an Ecuadorian man in Bushwick this past December. Police picked up 25-year-old Hakim Scott at his home in the Bronx and quickly got a full confession out of him. Police Commissioner Kelly said, "He said he had seen the news reports and that they had troubled him. He said he wanted to get it off his chest." Cops had used eyewitness accounts along with RFK Bridge surveillance footage to track down a vehicle driven by the other suspect, Scott's friend Keith Phoenix, a 28-year-old Bronx man (pictured) still being searched for. The assailants attacked the late Jose Sucuzhañay and his brother Romel when they saw them walking arm-in-arm along Bushwick Avenue and believed that they were homosexuals. A spokesman for the family said, “With anything, you are going to be appalled by any type of hate crime, whether mistaken as gay individuals or as immigrants, I think.” Mayor Bloomberg emphasized that "there is no such thing as a second-class citizen," giving remarks on the arrest in both English and Spanish. more ›

The wife of the man dragged twenty miles through city highways under a van Thursday is making a desperate plea for justice, despite little evidence that any charges will be brought against either of the two drivers who struck her husband during the brutal accident. Sonia Carabajo told an Ecuadorian TV station, "It's not fair that my husband died there as if he were an animal...Like an animal - dragged like a dog. How can it be?...It is incomprehensible - it's unjust." more ›

Two families mourned together in Ecuador yesterday, both having lost native sons to hate crimes that took place only a few dozen miles away from each other up here on the same island, but a hemisphere away from where they were born and are now buried. As hundreds gathered to pay their final respects to Jose Sucuzhañay, the man murdered in Bushwick last week, they were joined by relatives of Marcelo Lucero, who was murdered on Long Island last month. While teens have been arrested in Lucero's murder case, police are still searching for who was behind the attack on Sucuzhañay. His brother told the press, "I am thankful for the time that I had with my brother. This was a crime against all of us, it was a crime against humanity. May it never happen again." more ›

After Miguel Olaya's wife lost her battle to pelvic cancer on March 28th, he made arrangements with a Bay Ridge funeral home to send the remains to their native Ecuador. Then he went ahead to make the funeral arrangements, but when he arrived at the airport in the city of Guayaquil, he was told that his wife's remains were, uh, lost. Care to guess which airline? Good old American, which has been in the news recently for its baggage issues. more ›