Ecuador Profile

Long considered one of the most peaceful countries in the region, Ecuador has become one of the main hubs for drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America. The country is a major transit point for Colombian and Peruvian cocaine bound for Europe, Mexico, and Central America, and for years it has been home to operations run by Mexican, Colombian, and European drug trafficking organizations, as well as Colombian guerrilla groups along the northern border.

Since the late 2010s, the rise of a new generation of Ecuadorian criminal groups, known as “mafias,” has transformed the security landscape. These organizations garnered power within prisons, expanded their networks on the streets, and profited from corruption within security, justice, and government institutions. Prison massacres intensified, homicide rates rose to among the highest in Latin America, and drug trafficking remained the backbone of the criminal economy, although these groups also expanded into extortion, kidnapping, illegal mining, and arms trafficking.

In This Profile:

• How Does Ecuador’s Geography Facilitate Organized Crime?
• What Is the History of Organized Crime in Ecuador?
• Which Are the Main Criminal Groups in Ecuador?
• How Are Ecuador’s Security Forces Structured?
• What Is the State of Ecuador’s Justice System?
• What Is the State of Ecuador’s Prison System?

How Does Ecuador’s Geography Facilitate Organized Crime?

Ecuador, one of South America’s smallest countries, borders the two largest cocaine producers in the world: Colombia to the north and Peru to the east and south. This, combined with its extensive western coastline along the Pacific Ocean, made it one of the primary dispatch points for the global cocaine trade. In particular, the country’s ports of Guayaquil and Posorja, based in the Guayas province, have become crucial transshipment points for drugs heading to Europe, while the coastal provinces of Manabí and Esmeraldas emerged as major trafficking corridors used to reach Mexico and Central America. 

As one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, Ecuador is also susceptible to an assortment of environmental crimes like illegal fishing. The illicit trade of shark fins in the Galápagos Islands is a particular problem. In addition, there is rampant wildlife trafficking in the country’s eastern Amazon basin, and the vast forests along Ecuador’s borders with Peru and Colombia have been decimated, partly due to illegal logging. Furthermore, in the mountains of the north and far-flung Amazonian provinces in the east, illegal mining has risen.

What Is the History of Organized Crime in Ecuador?

Modern transnational organized crime established a foothold in the country during the latter half of the twentieth century. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Colombia’s Medellín and Cali cartels used Ecuador as a transshipment point for trafficking drugs and as a smuggling hub for precursor chemicals needed to process coca leaf into cocaine.

In the 1990s, the now-demobilized guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia–FARC) entered the country searching for supplies and safe haven. They would go on to establish a permanent presence in the border region, maintaining camps, controlling drug trafficking routes and processing laboratories, and establishing support networks and supply lines into the cities. The presence of the insurgents drew the attention of their enemies—principally, right-wing Colombian paramilitary groups—and their conflict spilled over the border. 

In the early 2000s, Ecuador also experienced an increase in street gangs and violence. This led the government to legalize gangs in a 2007 “pacification process,” recognizing groups like the Latin Kings as “urban youth groups” and opening the door for the group to lead political and social activities. The homicide rate in Ecuador dropped drastically during this time period, as the government, civil society groups, and academics fostered non-aggression pacts between the Latin Kings and their main rivals, the Ñetas.

Despite these efforts, international drug trafficking networks from Colombia and Mexico increased their presence in the country. As the European drug market surged, European traffickers, above all Albanian nationals, began to send their own emissaries. Mexican drug trafficking organizations sourcing cocaine in Colombia also used Ecuadorian gangs and drug traffickers as intermediaries and providers of logistical and security services.  

In the late 2010s, disparate gangs and criminal networks began uniting within the prisons to form powerful criminal networks, referred to as “mafias,” which took over the penitentiary system, expanded across the country outside the prisons, and established themselves as key service providers to drug traffickers. The breakup of the most powerful of these groups, the Choneros, in 2020 opened the door to an array of splinter groups that violently contested control of the prisons, the streets, and drug trafficking corridors. One of the splinter groups, named the Lobos, would break away and eventually emerge as one of Ecuador’s most significant and influential criminal organizations. Other groups, such as the Chone Killers and Tiguerones followed, initially forming a pact with the Lobos, rebranding themselves the New Generation, or Nueva Generación.

These disputes led to a period of unprecedented violence, characterized by brutal prison massacres, soaring murder rates, terror tactics, and political violence culminating in the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in 2023.

In January 2024 came a turning point after a journalist was held hostage live on the Guayaquil TV station by a group of armed members of the Ecuadorian gang the Tiguerones. With the security situation spiraling out of control and homicide rates at an all-time high, the recently elected Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict.” His government also designated 22 organized crime groups as terrorist organizations and deployed the armed forces to the prisons and streets. Following these actions, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Choneros and the Lobos.  

In 2024, Tiguerones’s leader William Joffre Alcívar Bautista, alias “Negro Willy,” and Chone Killers’ leader Antonio Benjamín Camacho, alias “Ben 10,” were captured in Spain and Colombia, respectively, provoking the breakup of some of their criminal organizations. Not long after, in 2025, Ecuadorian authorities captured José Adolfo Macías, alias “Fito,” then the Choneros’ top leader, while Spanish authorities captured Lobos leader Wilmer Chavarría, alias “Pipo,” as part of a joint operation. The US also declared the Choneros and the Lobos as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Two other groups, the Chone Killers and the Tiguerones, would later join them on these lists. 

After the captures of the leaders of the Lobos, Chone Killers and Tiguerones, Fito’s extradition to the US came amid yet another wave of violence. Criminal groups engaged in violent confrontation for key trafficking routes and territories, plunging the country into a state of emergency. Scrambling, the government mandated lockdowns and curfews. Still, 2025 ended as the most homicidal on record.

Relations between Ecuador and the US deepened between the Trump and Noboa administrations. In addition to the FTO designations, the two countries began cooperating both in Ecuador and the open seas to target suspected criminal operators. Dozens of alleged criminals were killed off the coast of Ecuador by US forces operating in the region, and US and Ecuadorian forces executed joint military operations in Ecuador. 

Which Are the Main Criminal Groups in Ecuador?

Ecuador is home to several prison mafias and drug trafficking gangs that have vastly grown in sophistication and size since the last 2010s. 

The two largest and most sophisticated groups operating in the country are the Choneros, and the Lobos. The Choneros began as a local gang dedicated to predatory crimes, such as car theft, but over time transformed into Ecuador’s most formidable prison mafia and a key service provider to transnational drug traffickers. The Lobos, meanwhile, are a Choneros splinter group, which, since breaking away in 2020, has grown exponentially.  

Multiple smaller groups are also prominent in Ecuador’s prisons and criminally strategic territories. Among them are the Lagartos, the Choneros’ long-time rivals, and the Tiguerones and Chone Killers, which began under the Choneros’ umbrella, broke away after the December 2020 murder of Choneros leader Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña.” Factions of the Latin Kings have also returned to organized crime, either out of disillusionment with the pacification process or to protect themselves.

As the fighting has continued, the Lobos have splintered, provoking the emergence of dissident factions—such as the Lobos-Sao Box. Smaller gangs such as the Tiguerones have also fragmented into further factions, namely the Igualitos and the Fénix. This process accelerated following the law enforcement operations carried out to decapitate and dismantle the Lobos, Tiguerones and Chone Killers, and the extradition of former Choneros leader Fito in 2025. 

This has created a volatile criminal panorama, where alliances are localized and precarious and violent disputes are common.

Ecuadorian groups work with both Ecuadorian and international drug traffickers. Among them are the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) of Mexico and Albanian traffickers, including cocaine kingpins like Dritan Rexhepi, who moved tons of the drug from Ecuador to Europe.

Other international groups that have a significant presence in Ecuador include dissident FARC factions known as the Oliver Sinisterra Front (Frente Oliver Sinisterrac – FOS), the Urías Rondón front, and another primarily Colombia-based group, the Border Command (Comandos de la Frontera), which remain active along the Colombian border. 

Additionally, the Comuneros del Sur and Pacific Guerrilla Coordinating Committee (Coordinadora Guerrillera del Pacífico – CGP), other Colombian rebel groups, have made incursions into Ecuador.

Meanwhile, over the years, a number of Ecuador’s most influential criminal actors have crossed the border, seeking refuge in Colombia. Ecuadorian and Colombian authorities have now promised to create cooperative solutions to better secure the border as part of their joint security strategy.

How Are Ecuador’s Security Forces Structured?

Ecuador has a national police force that is overseen by the Interior Ministry, which is the primary institution dedicated to fighting organized crime in the country. As organized crime has expanded, corruption scandals have grown, and the reputation of the police has declined.

Between 2013 and 2017, nearly 1,000 police officers, including high-ranking officers, were dismissed. Just under half of the dismissals were tied to allegedly criminal behavior. Police involvement in criminal activities has ranged from graft to extortion to facilitating drug trafficking and even transporting drugs in police vehicles.

In 2012, the administration of then-President Rafael Correa began expanding the military’s role in public security and anti-drug trafficking operations, in part because of police corruption and his government’s strained relationship with the force.

However, criminal groups have also successfully exploited corrupt Ecuadorian military personnel, with gangs and traffickers able to source weapons from the armed forces and military officials participating in drug trafficking. The deployment of the military in 2024 to break the stranglehold of prison gangs and relieve the notoriously corrupt prison authorities led to allegations of widespread human rights abuses and concerns over growing corruption.

Noboa’s initial use of the military appears to be turning into a permanent security strategy. In June 2026, Noboa confirmed the deployment of 13,000 troops to the most violent provinces in Ecuador. 

Since then, the United States recently announced that it will invest in Ecuador’s security strategy, lending money from the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program to provide resources to the country’s military. Human Rights Watch has described the US as arguably Ecuador’s main external security partner. 

More recently, however, Noboa has been hinting at a change in security approach. The announcement of Ecuador’s very own National Comprehensive Security Plan (PNSI) 2025–2029 pledges focus on reducing the factors contributing to increased violence. This counts on improving educational and employment opportunities for young people and rehabilitation and social integration, especially for young offenders.

What Is the State of Ecuador’s Justice System? 

Ecuador’s highest judicial body is the National Court of Justice, which includes a specialized chamber for criminal cases. Besides this, the Constitutional Court is responsible for constitutional matters. The Attorney General’s Office is responsible for criminal investigations, including those related to organized crime.

The judicial system is notoriously corrupt and frequently manipulated by organized crime and corrupt elites. In the early- to mid-2020s, it was a major focus of a series of corruption investigations, namely the Metastasis, “Purga” (Purge), and “Plaga” (Plague) cases, that embroiled top-level regional and national judicial officials. 

What Is the State of Ecuador’s Prison System?

Ecuador’s penitentiary system has become one of the world’s most violent. It has faced chronic overcrowding, under-resourcing, and corruption, which contributed to the rise of prison mafias. Disputes between these groups sparked a series of prison massacres beginning in 2021 that killed hundreds of inmates. The crisis in the prisons and its effect on citizen security led to the 2024 military intervention in the prison system.

The intervention reduced the frequency of the spectacular prison riots and massacres that had characterized the years between 2021 and 2023, but it did not resolve the broader prison crisis.

Violent deaths in prisons are currently on the upswing. According to Interior Ministry data compiled by Primicias, violent deaths in Ecuadorian prisons fell from a peak of 337 in 2021 to 163 in 2022, 110 in 2023 and 85 in 2024. In 2025, however, the number rose to 206. Total deaths in the prisons have surged even higher, reaching over 1,200 in 2025. A 2026 investigation by Conectas revealed that hunger and disease have claimed more lives than violence since the military intervention.

Ecuador appeared on the 2026 Global Torture Index produced by The World Organisation Against Torture due to the worsening of conditions and a rise in reported abuse and torture by security forces within prisons.

President Noboa has opened a high-security prison modeled after El Salvador’s CECOT called El Encuentro. The facility was designed to hold up to 800 high-risk inmates in Santa Elena province in western Ecuador. 300 prisoners were transferred to the prison on the day of its opening.