HomeNewsEcuador's Self-Defeating Anti-Trafficking Law
NEWS

Ecuador's Self-Defeating Anti-Trafficking Law

COCAINE / 12 APR 2021 BY SHANE SULLIVAN EN

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.

Ecuador is already on track to break last year's record haul of cocaine, having seized 35 tons in the first four months of 2021 -- an increase of 58 percent compared to the same period in 2020.

Despite these massive seizures, Ernesto Pazmiño, the director of Ecuador's Public Defender's Office during the administration of ex-president Rafael Correa, says the country is failing to prosecute large-scale offenders while punishing low-level ones. "Enormous quantities of drugs are seized, but the major traffickers are never arrested," Pazmiño told Expreso.

SEE ALSO: Container Shipping: Cocaine Hide and Seek

The problem, according to the Expreso report, may stem from a recent change in the country's chief anti-drug law -- a change that was part of wide-scale reforms to the Organic Integral Penal Code (Código Orgánico Integral Penal – COIP) approved by legislators in December 2019 but which did not go into effect until June 2020.

Under the revised criminal code, which sought to help Ecuador's efforts to decriminalize small-scale drug use, prosecutors must pass the difficult bar of proving that a person apprehended with drugs intended to commercialize them.

InSight Crime Analysis

The language of Ecuador’s new anti-trafficking law marks a deviation from that employed across the region, and it could limit prosecutors’ ability to convict large-scale traffickers, undermining anti-drug efforts in a key hub for international transit.

Before, the country’s chief anti-drug trafficking law -- article 220 of the COIP -- was similar to Colombia's. The Colombian law dictates that whoever “introduces, transports, carries, stores, conserves, manufactures, sells, offers, acquires, finances, or supplies” illicit substances is subject to criminal prosecution. This casts a wide net for prosecutors to employ.

Ecuador's reformed law reads similarly but adds one key phrase: “with the intent to commercialize or place on the market.”

SEE ALSO: LatAm Crime Groups Set Sights on Europe's Bustling Cocaine Market

In practice, the law’s explicit reference to the commercialization of drugs functions as a caveat, permitting people who are caught transporting drugs to evade prosecution in the absence of evidence proving their intent to bring the drugs to market. Given the intermediary role these traffickers play in the drug supply-chain, evidence of such intent is scarce, as shipments are not explicitly commercialized until they reach their final destinations -- often Europe, or beyond.

Street-level dealers, meanwhile, can be convicted and severely punished under the same law, despite their limited role in Ecuador's drug trafficking economy. For low-level drug dealers and microtraffickers, the new law carries severe consequences -- a sentences of up to 5 years, and even more if drugs end up in the hands of minors.

Yet the majority of drugs in Ecuador are for international delivery, not internal distribution: 110 tons and 18 tons, respectively, in 2020.

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

BRAZIL / 4 JAN 2023

East and Southern Africa are receiving much larger cocaine shipments from South America than previously imagined.

COCAINE / 7 APR 2022

Following an accelerating trend in the region, self-described anti-establishment candidate, Rodrigo Chaves, won Costa Rica's runoff presidential election with nearly…

COCAINE / 14 OCT 2021

The governor of Colombia's central department of Meta has survived two back-to-back assassination attempts, a rare case of a continued…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…