Long considered one of the safest countries in Latin America, Ecuador is now facing an unprecedented security crisis. Nestled between Peru and Colombia, two major coca producers, Quito is notably paying the price for the growth of the cocaine trade and the reorganization of distribution circuits that have led to an outbreak of corruption and armed violence.
Armed gangsters storm in live on public television, prison guards and police officers are taken hostage and threatened with death, there is panic on the streets, shops and schools are closed… Ecuador is facing an “internal armed conflict,” he explained on Tuesday, January 10th. President Daniel Noboa.
“In the south of the country, near the Peruvian border, fighting continues between the army and gang members,” Eric Samson, RFI correspondent in Quito, reports on France 24, while more than 130 members of the administrative prisons are still in the hands of armed groups .
After declaring a state of emergency on Monday, Daniel Noboa, 36, the youngest president in the country's history, ordered the “neutralization” of the 22 criminal gangs sowing terror in Ecuador.
Among them is Los Choneros, one of the country's oldest gangs with around 8,000 men. Their leader, Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” disappeared from Guayaquil prison on Sunday. On Tuesday, Ecuadorian authorities suffered a new humiliation with the escape of one of the leaders of Los Lobos, another powerful drug trafficking gang.
Also read: “Fito”, the leader of the Ecuadorian drug trade, escaped from a maximum security prison
These spectacular events appear to be the latest manifestation of the descent into hell of this small country, once considered a haven of peace and a popular tourist destination. Long spared from drug-trafficking violence, Ecuador has emerged as the new playground for the region's most feared criminal organizations and their local subcontractors.
According to experts, the turning point came in 2016 with the signing of the peace agreement between the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government. “This agreement has redistributed the cards for the drug trade in Colombia, Ecuador's northern neighbor,” recalls Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky, director of the Latin America Observatory of the Jean Jaurès Foundation, on France 24.
“A strategic point”
Until the peace agreement was signed, the FARC controlled two-thirds of the country's production, or about 40% of the cocaine consumed worldwide, according to the UN. In this new constellation, new international criminal actors such as the Mexicans of the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel or the Albanian mafia have emerged.
Although Ecuador does not produce drugs, it borders Colombia's coca-growing regions, particularly the departments of Narino and Putumayo. With its modern road network and vast coastline overlooking the Pacific, the country is an ideal transit zone for drugs sent to the United States. In addition, due to its geographical location, it is possible to reach the European market by transporting the drug across the Atlantic via the Amazon and Brazil.
“Ecuador has become a strategic point, a place of logistics and money laundering for Mexican cartels, especially the Sinaloa cartel linked to Los Choneros or even the Gulf cartel,” explains Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky. also has the advantage of being a “dollarized” country, making transactions easier since there is no local currency.
Ecuador is now at the center of the booming cocaine trade. According to the United Nations, coca cultivation increased to a record 35% between 2020 and 2021. The United Nations points out that “the rapid growth in supply over the last decade has been accompanied by an explosion in demand for cocaine.”
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The rise in drug trafficking has plunged Ecuador into an unprecedented spiral of violence, particularly in port cities where criminal organizations are vying for control. In Guayaquil, the largest port city in the southwest, bills are paid almost daily, earning the city the nickname “GuayaKill” on social media.
Threat to the state
Since 2018 and a first prison massacre and the explosion of a car bomb in the north of the country, the situation has only gotten worse. In the country's overcrowded prisons, clashes between rival gangs regularly claim dozens of victims. In July, a massacre of 31 prisoners was recorded in the Guayaquil detention center. According to a report published last summer by InSight Crime, According to an NGO that specializes in investigating criminal organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, the murder rate rose from 5.9 to 25.5 per 100,000 inhabitants between 2018 and 2022.
“Ecuador is becoming increasingly violent because the state, through its security forces, is intervening in the cocaine market by overthrowing leaders and increasing cocaine seizures,” said Córdova Alarcón, director of the Research Program on Order, Conflict and Violence at AFP the Central State University of Ecuador.
Those who dare to stand up to human trafficking and corruption immediately become targets of drug dealers. In August 2023, the assassination of anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio in the middle of the election campaign highlighted the threat that human traffickers posed to Ecuadorian society and the state.
Read also the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio: a history of political violence in Latin America
The power of money
After Tuesday's hostage-taking in Guayaquil and the show of force by mafia organizations, the Ecuadorian government complained about the “very high” infiltration of criminal groups within the state and described the prison system as a “failure.”
“The main weapon of these groups is money. Declaring a state of emergency, as the President has done, may have an impact on communications, but will it be followed up on? We think maybe not,” said Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky, according to which the country is not prepared for this situation.
“Because Ecuador was not a sensitive country from a security perspective, previous governments cut the budgets of the Interior Ministry, the army and the police. The current president has decided to follow the example of President Bukele in El Salvador, who achieved quite spectacular results against crime, but at the cost of a deterioration in rights and freedoms,” adds the expert.
See alsoIn El Salvador, the war on gangs threatens freedoms
International concern is growing amid the wave of violence that has hit Ecuador, claiming at least 10 lives since Monday. The United States pledged to “remain in close contact with President Daniel Noboa and the Ecuadorian government.” […]ready to provide help.
European Union diplomacy chief Josep Borrell said he was “deeply concerned” and denounced a “direct attack on democracy and the rule of law.”