HomeNewsLots of Blame, Little Proof - Mexico's Cartels Behind Violence in Ecuador?

After yet another prison massacre, Ecuadorean authorities have doubled down on Mexico’s two biggest cartels being behind gang warfare in the South American nation by providing weapons and cash to their chosen partners.

On November 12 and 13, riots at the Litoral prison in the southern port city of Guayaquil left at least 68 inmates dead and 25 more injured. This was the third large-scale massacre in Ecuador this year, with prison violence having killed over 320 people in 2021 alone, mainly at Litoral.

The wave of violence has been sparked by a civil war among the Choneros – once Ecuador’s largest gang and a trusted transporter of cocaine shipments for Colombian and Mexican groups – and several rivals, including the Lobos, Tiguerones, Chone Killers and Lagartos.

SEE ALSO: Profile of the Choneros

For the government, the conflict has been worsened by the involvement of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, backing the Choneros, and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación - CJNG), supporting its rivals.

“We are no longer facing common delinquents but the largest drug cartels in the entire world,” said President Guillermo Lasso in an address to the nation on November 15, adding that “Ecuador finds itself under a severe external attack by drug trafficking mafias.”

For Mario Pazmiño, Ecuador’s former head of intelligence, the culprits are clear. “Violence spiked when local criminal gangs started working for the rival Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation drug cartels,” he told The Guardian.

“The level of corruption is so high that the prison staff and officers are totally corrupted and the prisoners run the jail,” he added.

InSight Crime Analysis

The actual scale of the involvement of Mexico’s leading cartels in Ecuador is difficult to prove as it has been in much of the region.

The arsenals of high-caliber weaponry finding their way to the Choneros and Lobos and the connections needed to move the colossal quantities of cocaine going through Ecuador certainly point to cooperation.

In recent years, before the explosion in violence, the Choneros had a known partnership with the Sinaloa Cartel, moving cocaine from the Colombian border to Guayaquil and other port cities for the Mexican group.

It is also highly plausible that the CJNG made alliances with the Choneros’ rivals and helped arm them to fight for control of Ecuador’s best drug trafficking routes.

SEE ALSO: Ecuador’s Prison Slaughterhouse a Warning to Rest of Latin America

“Some level of cooperation is clear,” said one government source in Guayaquil, who requested anonymity due to security reasons. “Small go-fast boats and planes are leaving filled with drugs and coming back full of money and weapons.”

InSight Crime has previously reported on Telmo Castro, the Sinaloa Cartel’s “man in Ecuador” who was integral at setting up the cocaine pipeline between the Mexican gang and Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC).

Castro worked with Jorge Cifuentes, a senior Sinaloa operative, to build clandestine runways, set up drug flights and create semi-permanent infrastructure.

After Castro was murdered, also in Guayaquil’s Litoral Prison in December 2019, InSight Crime’s investigation found that the Sinaloa Cartel shifted away from fixed operators in Ecuador. Instead, they sent in small groups of brokers who would set up trafficking logistics with groups and then leave. The CJNG could be doing the the same, given its reach and financing.

Recent arrests of Mexican nationals in Ecuador confirm drug trafficking connections but nothing on the scale being suggested in connection to the prison massacres.

Instead, much like in Colombia and Venezuela, much remains vague. In March, military officials spoke of 13 groups along the Ecuador-Colombia border having connections to Mexican organized crime without providing many specifics.

For Arturo Torres, a local journalist with extensive experience covering organized crime in Ecuador, this is nothing new.

“Police investigations have not conclusively shown how the relations between Ecuadorean gangs and Mexican cartels work,” he told InSight Crime.

He blames this on a complete lack of coordination and intelligence work between security forces. “We are so overwhelmed by drug seizures that we have no capacity to lead long-term investigations that would reveal the full connections with Mexican cartels,” he added.

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

ECUADOR / 30 SEP 2021

Ecuador is reeling from its worst-ever prison massacre in Guayaquil but the factors that led to this situation could well…

ECUADOR / 8 NOV 2022

The Lobos, one of Ecuador's strongest criminal gangs, are crucial players in the cocaine trade flowing through the country.

COCAINE / 21 JUN 2021

Misconceptions surrounding Mexico's drug trade have long been replicated in popular culture and public discourses.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report continues to be a reference in the region

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Paraguay Election Coverage Draws Attention 

5 MAY 2023

InSight Crime looked at the various anti-organized crime policies proposed by the candidates in Paraguay’s presidential election, which was won on April 30 by Santiago Peña. Our pre-election coverage was cited…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in OAS, CARICOM Reports

28 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s work was cited nine times in a new report by the Organization of American States (OAS) titled “The Impact of Organized Crime on Women,…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Staff Cited as Experts by International Media

21 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime deputy editor, Juan Diego Posada, was interviewed by the Associated Press about connections between the ex-FARC mafia and Brazilian criminal groups, and…