Ecuador's battle against organized crime: The rising threat to the region

The wave of violence in Ecuador demonstrates that drug trafficking and organized crime are no longer a localized problem, and things could yet become worse in Latin America, bringing with it economic, political and social consequences.

Growing global demand for cocaine and Ecuador's geographic location between Colombia and Peru, two nations that, along with Bolivia, are responsible for 100% of coca bush cultivation, according to UN figures, have turned the country into an important drug transportation hub, particularly between Guayaquil port in the south to Mexico or Venezuela, before transportation to the US or Europe.

Criminal groups have been moving closer to centers of cocaine production "to gain access to supplies and wholesale quantities of cocaine," the UN said in its Global Cocaine Report 2023, adding that "these foreign groups are not aiming to take control of territory. Instead, they are trying to make supply lines more efficient," it added.

This has turned Guayaquil in particular, and other cities in Ecuador, into a constant battleground between warring local criminal groups and the allies of international cartels, especially those based in Mexico.

University of British Columbia professor Grace Jaramillo said the violence in Ecuador has its roots in Colombia and Mexico.

"What we're seeing in Ecuador is a combination of events we've already seen in Mexico and Colombia. Drug trafficking spread its tentacles when they tried to break the cartels in Colombia and the business was taken over by the Mexicans, who turned drug trafficking into a multilatina enterprise, which has unfortunately been successful," Jaramillo told BNamericas.

The base of operations, the creation of strategies and decision-making all come from Mexico, as does the way in which they gain ground in the political and institutional landscapes of states, she added.

On Tuesday there was a series of unprecedented attacks across Ecuador in response to efforts by the government to crack down on these organizations, leading President Daniel Noboa to declare that the country was "at war with terrorism,” claiming that there was an “internal armed conflict.” 

The president also identified 22 criminal groups "as terrorist organizations and belligerent non-state actors," with the head of the armed forces, Jaime Vela, stating that this made them all targets as "military objectives” as thousands of soldiers were deployed. 

According to local media, some of the weapons and explosives seized after some of the Tuesday attacks bore the insignia of the Peruvian armed forces, threatening to spread the conflict further south. 

On Wednesday, Peru's defense minister Jorge Chávez requested an audit of military material from all military institutions to determine whether weaponry from Peru had indeed been used by the Ecuadoran gangs.

Meanwhile, the Peruvian government has declared a state of emergency in the northern regions of Tumbes, Piura, Amazonas, Cajamarca and Loreto, fearing that the violence could propagate.

“The situation in Ecuador is the tip of the iceberg. Now it is in this country, but it's clear that in Peru there's drug trafficking activity in various jungle areas and that the port of Callao is used,” Julio Carrión, professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware, told BNamericas.

"It seems that drug trafficking is also infiltrating Chile because it's one of the few countries in which international markets have a lot of confidence in the ports, where they don't apply the same level of surveillance for products that arrive as with Peruvian, Ecuadoran or Colombian ports," he added.  

With cocaine production surging to 2,000t in 2020, according to the UN report, the gangs have significant incentives to find new shipment routes in the region.

A REGIONAL CHALLENGE

Noboa, who assumed the presidency in November and will govern until May 2025, will have very little time to implement an effective policy to control organized crime, even more so taking into account the scarcity of public funds at present.

The political and economic consequences of declaring a war on drug trafficking gangs could be very serious. If the president manages to gain the upper hand, however, a situation of relative calm could return in which economic activities would be able to develop, said Jaramillo.

However, the greatest challenge in the medium term for Ecuador will be to regain full control of its institutions, particularly the judiciary, and involve the international community in the fight against drug trafficking until peace is achieved in the long term. However, that looks to be a long, uphill task.

Carrión also said he believed that the growing power of organized crime is a challenge to which politicians around the world have failed to pay sufficient attention.

“This isn't just a crime issue but a political problem that requires not only the strengthening of states but also regional collaboration. There is a latent danger that violence will continue to spread in Latin America and it requires effective action,” he underlined.