Ecuador’s geographic location and other environmental characteristics have long provided incentives for transnational organized crime groups to exploit the country as a drug transshipment point and a logistical safe haven.
In Ecuador’s coastal town of Posorja, boats are being set on fire and people are being killed, as this fishing community - a key cocaine transit hub - becomes entangled…
Ecuador’s geographic location and other environmental characteristics have long provided incentives for transnational organized crime groups to exploit the country as a drug transshipment point and a logistical safe haven. Ecuador’s diverse transnational criminal landscape, dominated mainly by Colombian criminal and guerrilla groups as well as Mexican cartels, has led some to describe it as the “United Nations” of organized crime.
Once considered one of the most insecure countries in the region, Ecuador has succeeded in tackling certain manifestations of violence in recent years. But drug trafficking through the country is on the rise, paving the way for possible growing insecurity further down the road.
Integrated by multiple gangs with shared allies and enemies, Los Lagartos is one of Ecuador’s prolific prison gangs, whose rivalry with Los Choneros has spurned unprecedented levels violence in Ecuador’s…
Ecuador’s next president will face an unprecedented set of security challenges, as prison violence has soared to record levels, the country’s corruption is receiving international attention and the criminal situation…
While authorities in Ecuador tally record cocaine seizures, a change to the criminal code in the Andean country has possibly made it more difficult to prosecute large-scale traffickers.
Drug trafficking and transnational organized crime have been blamed for deadly riots among rival gangs in Ecuador's prisons, but the carnage has more to do with how the country's gangs…
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