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Ecuador buy blow

Little attention is paid to Ecuador. The murder rate is low, and there are no drug cartels like those that have dominated the criminal landscape in Mexico and Colombia. This is how the international drug trade likes it. Low key, low profile. Behind this trade is a complex and fluid underworld of specialist groups and sub-contractors coordinated by the brokers of powerful transnational drug trafficking organizations, and protected by corruption networks that penetrate deep into the state. Around the same time, a military assault and mass aerial spraying of coca crops in Colombia was pushing both the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia — FARC and coca cultivation towards the Ecuador border. The FARC established control over cocaine production in the region, and began supplying traffickers from the Norte del Valle Cartel , who opened up routes into and out of Ecuador. He oversaw a dramatic fall in violence and record drug seizures while bringing in an era of unprecedented political stability. But his government was plagued by drug trafficking scandals, and his strongman style weakened the capacity of the Ecuadorean state and civil society to resist drug trafficking. The closure of Manta was just the start of an antagonistic foreign policy approach that saw his government fall out with both Colombia and the United States. As a result, anti-narcotics cooperation with both the supply and demand countries Ecuador is caught between was pared back to a bare minimum. He politicized the judiciary , using it as a tool to take down opponents. He also directed the security forces and intelligence units away from combating organized crime, and instead turning them on his political adversaries, according to police and intelligence sources, and cowed the press and non-governmental watchdogs with his fiery rhetoric and legal action. Over a decade on from his election, and Ecuador is now an organized crime haven and arguably the main dispatch point for Colombian cocaine outside of Colombia itself. There are two pathways cocaine takes through Ecuador — the Pacific route and the Amazon route. Shipments are collected at stash points near the border. Some loads are then moved by boats that hug the coastline and hide in craggy inlets. Most of the drugs, however, are moved by road, stashed in commercial trucks, private vehicles and even public transport. The main border crossings are the San Miguel and Putumayo rivers, where small boats deposit loads at stash points in lawless underworld outposts, such as Puerto Nuevo, Puerto Mestanza, and Tarapoa. However, drugs also move directly across the San Miguel international bridge after being loaded into vehicles in Colombia. Figures obtained from anti-narcotics sources, show that in , 44 percent of drug seizures were destined for the United States, 22 percent for Europe, 4 percent for Central America, and one percent for each Asia and for Oceania, while 28 percent was unknown. The US market is mainly supplied by boats launched from the coast, and light aircraft, while cocaine is sent to Europe on contaminated cargo shipping. The trafficking often begins with a hijacking. Pirate crews lurk off the coast, preying on fishermen to steal their boats and outboard motors at the point of a gun. Traffickers then have a choice of three routes. From Esmeraldas they can make a direct run to Central America, but this brings them perilously close to US and Colombian patrols. Instead, most prefer to loop around either north or south of the Galapagos Islands. The most recent US National Drug Threat Assessment estimated that in , 17 percent of all US-bound cocaine first passed around the Galapagos islands, up from just 4 percent in , and 1 percent in The boats traffickers use for the Pacific runs are not equipped for long-distance high seas travel and must refuel as many as six times along the way. The fuel is provided by fishing vessels, which leave the city of Manta laden with gasoline and a satellite phone and wait at pre-arranged locations. The fishing boats carry five tanks at a time, allowing them to refuel several boats. Here they may be met by boats to hand over loads, but fear of being violently double-crossed has fueled the use of GPS-enabled radio or satellite buoys. This allows them to drop their shipments overboard before passing the coordinates to the pickup crews, which find them by following the signals emitted by the buoys. While coastal dispatches remain the main method for trafficking US-bound cocaine, the use of Ecuador as an air bridge is on the rise, a result, authorities believe, of increased pressure on maritime routes. Traffickers mostly use Cessna aircraft that are stripped out and modified so they can carry more drugs and fuel, and are even capable of refueling themselves mid-air. These aircraft can carry between and kilos, and take around six hours to reach Costa Rica or Guatemala, where they either unload or refuel and continue to Mexico. Planes take off using a variety of clandestine or improvised airstrips. Traffickers construct airstrips by leveling off land in isolated areas, use existing strips on private or commercial properties such as strips used for crop dusting planes on fruit plantations, or they use abandoned airports or even roads closed for construction. Control of the ports is low, while corruption is high, and traffickers have an array of options for hijacking the freight that moves through them. These shell companies are set up in the names of frontmen, commonly people with few economic resources and no criminal background. In other cases they buy existing companies with long histories of clean exports to reduce the risk of them receiving anything but the most cursory inspection. Ostensibly legal export shipments are then arranged, and the cocaine is concealed within the products. However, a more common technique is to contaminate legal shipments, hiding drugs in containers either before they enter the port, in the port or after the ships leave the docks. To get their drugs into shipments before entering the port, traffickers target not the goods but the containers themselves. They pack drugs into compartments in the floor, ceiling or walls of empty containers in storage yards then use contacts in shipping companies to ensure their container is sent to a company planning an export to their target destination. The containers may also be contaminated after entering the port district. Freight trucks with drugs hidden in secret compartments enter the district and move to known blind spots in security camera coverage to unload. Dock workers then break open containers and load the drugs among the legal produce. A cloned or fake custom seal is then put in place to mask the tampering. Containers and even the ships themselves may also be contaminated after they have set sail. The actors that run these drug routes are a combination of Ecuadorean, Colombian, Mexican and European criminal networks. For Mexican cartels in particular, the handover can be around the Colombian border. However, the Colombian traffickers can also arrange delivery to dispatch points in Ecuador or to handover points in Europe or off the coasts of Mexico and Central America. These cocaine brokers sub-contract the work of sourcing and transporting cocaine to the criminal service providers that operate at each link in the chain. In the frontier region, the key players are the networks left behind from the demobilization of the FARC, which are active on both sides of the border. Rearmed and criminalized guerrilla cells take charge of compiling loads in Colombia and ensure their safe transport into Ecuador. Trafficking is coordinated using the logistics and transport specialists and networks of corrupt officials that used to work trafficking FARC produced cocaine. The transport networks handover to specialist Ecuadorean dispatch networks. These sophisticated, low-profile organizations are led by individual traffickers, many of whom live disguised among regional social, economic and political elites. These traffickers organize the logistics of a shipment: coordinating corruption networks, recruiting smugglers, securing fuel, equipment and any other supplies needed. They also hire armed actors to provide security, collect debts and carry out assassinations. The different trafficking methods all demand different logistical capacities and contacts, and although some traffickers have been known to work with different methods, most are specialized. Coastal shipments are organized by crime clans, many of which are concentrated in the city of Manta. These networks recruit fishermen from coastal communities to man their boats, organize refueling stops, and equip the boats with communications equipment and supplies. In addition to securing access to airstrips, networks sending shipments by small aircraft provide fuel through corrupt private sector or state contacts, communications equipment that allows them to coordinate with the incoming pilots, and cloned license plates of planes with permission to fly in the area where they will be landing. For port dispatches, the key is corrupt contacts. To contaminate containers before loading, they need contacts in the shipping companies, above all with the container dispatchers that control which containers get sent to which companies, and in the storage yards so they can work to load up the drugs. If they contaminate containers within the port district, they need truck drivers, stevedores, security guards and the winch operators that have access to information on the movements and locations of containers. These traffickers and the routes they control are protected by corruption networks of astonishing reach. Police and military not only wave drug shipments through their controls, they have even provided security for drug shipments and their traffickers, transported cocaine in their official vehicles and are even believed to have carried out assassinations, according to intelligence sources. If traffickers are caught, then most are able to buy their way out of trouble. Sources describe how they pay off prosecutors and judges to sabotage investigations and to obtain favorable rulings. Traffickers are also able to call upon politicians on their payroll, who pull the necessary stings to put an end to their problems. Although such corruption has been present in Ecuador as long as drug trafficking, official and expert sources all concur that under Rafael Correa it reached epidemic proportions, taking root in all branches of the state. The election of President Lenin Moreno promised a new approach. Moreno reached out to the international partners estranged by Correa. Moreno also oversaw the arrest of senior political figures on corruption charges, and promised to investigate the ties between Rafael Correa and underworld groups, although Correa supporters and other critics denounce this as a political purge masquerading as an anti-corruption drive. However, when a wave of public protests snowballed into violent riots in October , the political terrain again shifted. Moreno blamed Correa loyalists and groups with links to organized crime and drug trafficking for hijacking what had begun as an indigenous protest against fuel subsidies. While those claims remain unverified, one thing is clear: the polarization and political crisis the protests unleashed now threaten to swallow his administration, pushing drug trafficking off the agenda and back to where it thrives — in the shadows. Top Image: Cocaine hidden in banana cargo at the Guayaquil port. Photo courtesy of anti-narcotics unit. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of the latest organized crime news and stay up-to-date on major events, trends, and criminal dynamics from across the region. Donate today to empower research and analysis about organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, from the ground up. Skip to content. Drug Trafficking Routes There are two pathways cocaine takes through Ecuador — the Pacific route and the Amazon route. Stay Informed With InSight Crime Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a weekly digest of the latest organized crime news and stay up-to-date on major events, trends, and criminal dynamics from across the region.

The La Salle Falconer

Ecuador buy blow

Ecuador was once regarded as one of the safest countries in South America. This escape prompted the government, led by current President Daniel Noboa, on Jan. This declaration in return sparked a wave of gang violence, most notably the hijacking of a television station during a live newscast in the port city, Guayaquil. This strong response made it seem like this was a one-time occurrence of public violence. However, this was not the case, as in March and April, more extreme acts of violence took place. This included the murder of year-old Brigitte Garcia, the mayor of the small town of San Vicente in the province of Manabi, who was found dead along with her associate Jairo Loornm in a car with gunshot wounds. She is not the only politician who has been killed in recent times, as just last year, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was gunned down at a rally by unknown assailants. Villavicenio was a harsh critic of the illegal drug industry, and his death can be seen as a turning point in the fight against drug cartels. On Sunday, March 31, gunmen attacked a group of people in Guayaquil, killing nine and injuring 10 others. One day later, 20 Ecuadorian gangsters abducted, interrogated and killed five tourists from a hotel in the beach town of Ayampe, thinking they were members of a rival gang. Being Ecuadorian and having visited there as recently as June, it feels as if this dramatic shift came out of left field. However, there were cracks starting to show during my visit. One of my uncles also faced harassment from one of the local gangs in El Carmen, a town also located in the Manabi province, as they tried to recruit him. I also witnessed a traffic disruption due to a drug search by the military when visiting family at our farm in El Carmen. Despite these occurrences, the lurking danger felt like a wave that would be dealt with just as quickly as it arose before turning into something permanent. How did a country that just five years ago was named one of the safest in the world and one of the top locations for American retirees turn into a country ranked 11th most violent in the world alongside counties such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan? While the exact answer is very complex, simply put this violence and unease put forth by increased gang activities is due to an influx in drug trafficking, specifically cocaine, and government corruption. But why in a continent racked with drug issues has Ecuador only now started to show signs of distress? The weak military and police response was another factor, as was the dollarization of the economy. For many years, Ecuador was shielded from the majority of the gang violence that has plagued the rest of South America. Thus, it was not equipped to entirely deal with this influx of activity and had not formed a strong police and military response to gangs, allowing for gangs to gain power rapidly. The decision by former President Rafael Correa to shut down the American military base in Manta in was another factor. This military base was where American forces helped regulate drug trafficking in the Andean region, and shutting it down erased what little control there was, causing a dramatic growth in distribution. In , Mr. It almost feels as if the majority of people perceive this to be typical of a South American country, which in movies is synonymous with drugs and violence. I think it may also feel as if this gang activity is confined to the Southern Hemisphere. However, this is very far from the truth. The drugs are shipped to be sold in not just regional markets, but mainly foreign ones. The increase in gang control should be alarming to Americans because besides Europeans, we are the ones playing a major role due to our large consumption of cocaine. This also impacts the U. The violence that took place in January showed the extent that the gangs will go to keep their operations in place, because they know that the demand is only increasing. For too long, Americans and Europeans have passively sat by, ignoring the pivotal role that they play in the mayhem occurring, but this year has shown that foreign countries can no longer sit by idly while their citizens are happily buying drugs manufactured and shipped from once-peaceful countries decimated by drug coups. An example of the lack of engagement from the US that is hurting Ecuador is the failed arms deal proposed in March. The U. When the Biden administration made this public, Ecuador was put in a tight spot as Russia — a top trading partner — imposed a ban on a series of key agricultural imports, mainly bananas, which was a devastating blow to the already weakened economy. Ecuador is at the point where foreign involvement appears to be the only solution, because foreign interference has led to the current state of affairs. Cancel reply. Your email address will not be published. Thank you very much for this very informative article. I hope through this attention we can encourage the development of solutions to this crisis and restore security and prosperity in Ecuador. Thank you! Skip to Content Categories: Opinion. Sofia Gonzalez. Foreign countries and markets are directly complicit in the events that have taken place, and although foreign influence is part of the issue, the country is at the point where they need help to combat the growing influence of gangs. So, how did this happen? More to Discover. More in Opinion. We'd love to hear your thoughts! Let us know what you think about this story by submitting a comment below. We welcome respectful comments that engage in conversations. Comments are moderated, and won't appear until they are approved. An email address is required, but won't be publicly displayed. The Falconer's complete comment policy can be viewed on our policies page. Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Verification Field. Reply Recommend Share. Close Modal Window.

Ecuador buy blow