HomeNewsAnalysisEcuador Arms Trafficking Ring More Complex Than Previously Thought
ANALYSIS

Ecuador Arms Trafficking Ring More Complex Than Previously Thought

ARMS TRAFFICKING / 6 MAR 2019 BY JUAN CAMILO JARAMILLO AND MAYRA ALEJANDRA BONILLA EN

Organized crime structures are known to be moving entire arsenals from Peru into Ecuador and on to armed groups within Colombia. However, the full details about the origins of these weapons and the specific criminal organizations receiving them remain unknown.

On February 13, Ecuadorean authorities carried out an operation in the cities of Quito and Riobamba, dismantling an international arms trafficking network that transported, stored and distributed weapons and ammunition from Peru into Ecuador, as well as along Ecuador’s border with Colombia.

In an operation dubbed "Armageddon 9," authorities intercepted two vehicles, raided several warehouses, arrested seven people, seized 500,000 rounds of ammunition and other explosives seemingly bound for Colombia's black market.

While reports of weapons sales from the Ecuadorean army to Colombian criminal groups continue, this operation revealed that high-tech weapons from the United States and Mexico are entering Ecuador through Peru, and then being smuggled into Colombia at several points along the border.

SEE ALSO: Ecuador News and Profile

A report by Ecuadorean authorities explained that the weapons coming from Peru first arrived in El Oro province. From there, they seem to be frequently moved to the city of Guayaquil before being distributed and sold to criminal organizations and other armed groups operating along the Colombian border, notably in Ecuador's border provinces of Esmeraldas and Sucumbíos.

In the last nine years, Ecuador's police has seized around 40,000 smuggled weapons, including 12,000 high-caliber rifles, which were all bound for criminal organizations.

Authorities have been on particularly high alert since October 2018, when "Operation Chameleon" broke up an arms trafficking ring which smuggled weapons from the Ecuadorean army to an ex-FARC mafia group known as the Oliver Sinisterra Front. This group of dissidents from the now largely demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC) was under the orders of Walter Patricio Arizala, alias "Guacho," who was one of the most wanted criminals in both Colombia and Ecuador up until his death in December 2018.

Despite these successes, Colombian guerrillas continue to receive “large quantities of munitions and high-caliber weaponry” from transnational organized crime groups through Ecuador, according to Ecuadorean prosecutor Wilson Álvarez Valencia.

Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo added that doubts remain regarding which organizations in Colombia are specifically receiving weapons from Peru and Ecuador. While the Oliver Sinisterra Front was among them, Romo said they were also equipped with weapons which are not part of the standard arsenal for Ecuador's security forces, such as 5.56mm and 9mm caliber weaponry.

InSight Crime Analysis

The Ecuadorean army has long faced an internal crisis about some of its elements selling weapons to criminals. The country has also been unable to curtail its role as a transshipment point for other arms smuggling networks.

However, despite repeated operations, specifics about the origins of these weapons, the groups moving them and the criminal organizations receiving them, besides the Oliver Sinisterra Front, remain difficult to come by.

The involvement of members of the Ecuadorean army is well documented, but successful seizures reveal an international connection on a far larger scale. Ecuador's government, while accepting responsibility for actions within its own military, has pointed to these larger arsenals coming from abroad through countries like Peru.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Arms Trafficking

The weapons seized during "Operation Armageddon 9" were being moved to a “range of local groups” in Colombia, according to a high-ranking government source consulted by InSight Crime. More specific information than that, however, was not available.

Henry Troya, Ecuador's former deputy mining minister, told InSight Crime that caches of high-powered weaponry were discovered in flyovers to detect illegal mining operations, including “bombs, grenades, missiles and long-range weapons.”

One high-profile case might shine some more light on this. In April 2018, a team of three media workers from the Ecuadorean newspaper El Comercio was kidnapped and later killed by the Oliver Sinisterra Front along the Colombia-Ecuador border. However, Colombian and Ecuadorean authorities have not released a detailed ballistics report about which weapons were used to kill them.

Ecuador has taken steps to curb the sell-off of its military equipment, but the practice still continues. Without major international assistance, the country does not have the investigative capacity to track the weapons coming in from outside, or to follow them once they move into Colombia.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCA / 22 AUG 2022

Narco ambulances in Colombia aren't new, but a recent rash of discoveries suggests that they are back in vogue with…

AUC / 11 MAR 2022

Alleged drug trafficker alias "Memo Fantasma" or "Will the Ghost," was formally charged during a March 9 virtual audience, of…

COLOMBIA / 13 SEP 2023

Pablo Escobar's former hitman, Henry Holguín, explains how he exchanged killing for peacebuilding ahead of Colombia's Total Peace talks.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…