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Agence France-Presse

Only a few years ago, Ecuador was an island of peace wedged between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers.
But since 2018, drug seizures and homicides have increased alarmingly, blamed widely on transnational organised crime groups.
The assassination on Wednesday of centrist candidate Fernando Villavicencio – up to then second in polls ahead of the August 20 presidential election – has shaken the country to its core.
Six Colombians have been arrested in connection with the shooting attack outside a campaign rally, and a seventh died in a gun battle with security agents.
Colombian hitmen in spotlight after slaying of Ecuador presidential candidate
Drug-linked violence in Ecuador last year propelled the homicide rate to 26 per 100,000 inhabitants, nearly double the previous year’s level.
President Guillermo Lasso, who has been battling the drug gangs but been unable to stem the rising violence, has accused “organised crime” of killing Villavicencio, a former journalist who had denounced corruption and received death threats from the drug gang known as Los Choneros.
Ecuador on Saturday transferred Los Choneros leader Jose Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito”, to a maximum security prison via a massive military and police operation.
Lasso announced on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, that Fito had been transferred to La Roca, a 150-person maximum security prison that is part of the same penitentiary complex where the gang boss was already being held.
Fito was accused of threatening Villavicencio before he was slain. Villavicencio had earlier told a local programme that an “emissary” for Fito had contacted him and told him to stop talking about the gang.
“If I continue ... mentioning Los Choneros, they are going to break me,” he said.

Interior Minister Juan Zapata has said there are more than 13 organised crime groups operating in Ecuador, the oldest and most powerful of which is Los Choneros, now allied with the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico.
But the country’s military intelligence says it has identified as many as 26 active narcotrafficking gangs, which are heavily armed and with numbers that experts said could perhaps rival Ecuador’s 60,000-strong police forces.
Analysts say the wars on drugs in Mexico and Colombia have put pressure on the cartels in those countries – as well as Albanian mafias – prompting them to set up operations in Ecuador.
For the narcotraffickers, Ecuador’s ports on the Pacific provide useful points from which to export cocaine to Europe and the United States.
The gangs were attracted as well by the country’s porous borders, dollarised economy, widespread corruption and lack of money-laundering controls, the experts said.
Presidential candidate in Ecuador assassinated at campaign event
Jorge Restrepo, director of Colombia’s CERAC think tank, said the cartels can operate in Ecuador “at a lower production cost”.
“Ecuador has a policy of fighting organised crime that has not prevented government forces and judicial organisations from being infiltrated by drug-linked organised crime,” he said.
Luis Cordova Alarcon, who heads a programme on conflict and violence at the Central University of Ecuador, dates the beginning of “extreme criminal violence” to a deadly car bombing in January 2018.
The attack partly destroyed a police headquarters and wounded 23 people in a town on the border with Colombia.


It was blamed on a dissident of the Colombian guerrilla group FARC, who murdered three journalists working for Quito’s El Comercio newspaper and was killed that year by Colombian security guards.
The car bomb attack was followed by bloody prison massacres between rival drug gangs that left 430 inmates dead over the following three years.
Much like in Mexico, Ecuadorans began to see dismembered bodies left in the streets, corpses hanging from bridges, and kidnappings-for-ransom in which captors cut off their victims’ fingers or ears.
Among the victims of violence in Ecuador have been mayors, judges, prosecutors and dozens of innocent civilians.

Cocaine seizures, meantime, have steadily risen.
Experts say the growing number of seizures, and police crackdowns in the prisons from which many drug-gang leaders operate, have only made things worse.
“Ecuador is becoming increasingly violent because of the way the state intervenes through its security forces, capturing the ringleaders and increasing cocaine seizures,” said Cordova Alarcon.
The criminals grow more violent as they defend their business, as well as other illegal activities like illicit gold mining and arms trafficking, he said.
“Organised crime is already taking over the state,” he added.


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Americas and the Caribbean

How Ecuador became one of the most violent countries in Latin America

Relatives and friends of slain Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio attend his funeral in Quito on Friday. Photo; AFP

Armed forces transfer the criminal leader Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as “Fito”, to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Photo: Handout via Reuters

Police officers gather confiscated material during a joint operation with the armed forces at a prison in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Colombian hitmen in spotlight after assassination of Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio

Family members surround the coffin of Fernando Villavicencio during a public wake in Quito, Ecuador, on August 11. Photo: EPA-EFE

Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio speaks during a campaign event at a school minutes before he was shot to death in Quito on August 9. Photo: API via AP

Presidential candidate in Ecuador assassinated at campaign event

People take cover after shots were fired at the end of a rally of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito. Photo AFP

Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio speaks during a campaign event at a school minutes before he was shot to death. Photo: AP

Supporters of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio take cover after he was shot. Photo: AP

Kidnappers in Ecuador resort to cutting off victims’ fingers to get hefty ransoms as crime jumps

Ecuador has empowered the military to pursue members of organised crime with greater freedom. Photo: AFP

Soldiers and police officers take part in a security operation at the Rivera del Rio neighbourhood in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. Photo: AFP

A soldier frisks a man on motorbike in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Photo: AFP

Armed attackers kill 10, wound 3 outside shop in Ecuador port city of Guayaquil

Ecuadorian police officers inspect a workshop after a multiple murder that left 10 dead in downtown Guayaquil, Ecuador on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Ecuadorean police inspect a workshop after a multiple murder that left 10 dead in downtown Guayaquil, Ecuador on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso in Alausi, Ecuador on March 27. Photo: Reuters

At least 12 inmates killed in fresh Ecuador prison clashes

Relatives of inmates await information outside the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, Ecuador on Saturday after clashes broke out on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

News

World

Americas

Ecuador’s military intelligence says it has identified as many as 26 active narcotrafficking gangs, which are heavily armed
Experts say Ecuador’s ports are easy export points for cocaine, while cartels can operate in the country ‘at a lower production cost’


Ecuador’s military intelligence says it has identified as many as 26 active narcotrafficking gangs, which are heavily armed.


Crime

Drugs

Albania

Ecuador

How Ecuador became one of the most violent countries in Latin America

Ecuador’s military intelligence says it has identified as many as 26 active narcotrafficking gangs, which are heavily armed Experts say Ecuador’s ports are easy export points for cocaine, while cartels can operate in the country ‘at a lower production cost’

Ecuador’s military intelligence says it has identified as many as 26 active narcotrafficking gangs, which are heavily armed

Experts say Ecuador’s ports are easy export points for cocaine, while cartels can operate in the country ‘at a lower production cost’