Arms trafficking fuels violence in Ecuador

In less than ten years, Ecuador went from being the second safest country in Latin America to the most violent in the region. According to the annual Bulletin of Intentional Homicides from the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory (OECO), in 2023 Ecuador was among the 10 countries in the world with the highest crime rates, with an average of 47.25 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. The drug trade was one of the decisive factors in this change.

For María Paula Romo Rodríguez, former interior minister of Ecuador (2018-2020), now a research fellow at Florida International University, “until a few years ago the criminal drug trafficking industry was the most important in the country, but today that is a mistake.” Ask one Diagnosis that focuses on that,” she said dialog. “Criminal activities have increased and become more diverse, and among the main ones we should consider are illegal mining, human trafficking, illegal logging, wildlife trafficking and – affecting a large percentage of the population – extortion.”

According to Romo, there are many reasons for this security crisis that threatens the entire region. The rise in poverty and unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic, poor political decisions, corruption and problems due to the demobilization of armed groups in Colombia have also played an important role in the spread of crime.

“In the neighboring country, the number of hectares planted with coca has multiplied, and meanwhile Ecuador has subsidized intermediate products such as gasoline, roads, ports, airports and a dollar financial system,” which attracted criminals, Romo said.

The exponential growth of the illegal arms market is one of the most serious consequences of all these illegal activities. According to the Global Organized Crime Index 2020 by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), the arms trade is considered the most widespread criminal market in Ecuador, placing the country in a “highly vulnerable space.”

“What we see in Ecuador is that increasingly powerful weapons are on the market to ensure better protection, for example, for criminal groups active in drug trafficking or mining. “In the case of mining, the groups that control it must be armed in order to intimidate and effectively evict communities,” said Carla Álvarez, professor at the Ecuador Institute for Advanced National Studies and author of Paradise lost? Firearms trafficking and violence in Ecuador, published jointly by GI-TOC and OECO in June.

Weapons from foreign criminal groups

Ecuador is not an industrial weapons producer. In 2012, the Ecuadorian government banned artisanal firearms production across the country as part of measures to curb rising violence. Nevertheless, many small workshops opted for illegal production, especially in the Chimborazo and Bolívar regions.

However, experts and authorities have also recorded an increase in industrial weapons on the illegal market in the last two years, due to the increase in foreign criminal groups in the area, such as Mexican cartels and Albanian mafias.

“These international groups have easy access to weapons. What is new is that there is a direct connection between them and Ecuadorian criminal groups. Each group builds its own relationship. For example, a local group like Los Lobos has ties to a Mexican cartel and that cartel supplies them directly with weapons. There is no middleman or dealer who comes to Ecuador and distributes weapons to the different groups, but rather each group monopolizes its own arms supply,” said Álvarez.

Ecuador is primarily home to the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) cartels, which, according to the Mexican government, smuggle hundreds of thousands of weapons into Mexico, which are then also diverted to Ecuador, where these cartels operate. According to local authorities, these weapons are exchanged for drugs, money and even information with local criminal organizations such as Los Choneros, Los Lobos and Los Tiguerones.

As for the Albanian criminals who mainly work for the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Ecuador, Italian prosecutor Nicola Gratteri warned that weapons used in the Ukraine conflict could soon end up in Latin America.

According to Álvarez, the air and sea routes of the arms trade from Central America to Ecuador overlap with those of the drug trade. For example, in November 2023, police in the Galápagos Islands carried out the largest weapons seizure in Ecuador’s history: 122 assault rifles, 48 ​​pistols and 124 magazines. Most recently, in August 2024, Salvadoran authorities seized 1.2 tons of cocaine, ammunition and 34 high-caliber weapons, including AR-15 and AK-47 rifles, aboard a Mexican and an Ecuadorian vessel.

The weapons come overland from Colombia and Peru. In March 2023, a criminal network specializing in this type of trafficking called Los Abastecedores de Lima y Callao (The Suppliers of Lima and Callao) was discovered on the Peruvian border between Piura and Tumbes. According to the news agency France PressPeruvian authorities suspected that the same network supplied one of the weapons used to kill Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio in Quito in August 2023.

“The lack of control over the arms trade in other countries facilitates larger and more direct flows of arms, allowing criminal groups to gain power in Ecuador,” Álvarez said.

International cooperation

International cooperation “is crucial, and the current situation is also explained by the years in which this cooperation and work has been lost.” Cooperation with the United States can be in various areas such as criminal investigation, information sharing, investigations and investigative techniques, as well as the Professionalization of security forces will be crucial,” Romo said.

When the Ecuadorian government asked for international help in the fight against organized crime, the United States was among the countries that responded quickly. For example, in January 2024, U.S. Army General Laura J. Richardson, commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), during her visit to Ecuador, announced the Ecuador Security Sector Assistance Roadmap (ESSAR), a five-year plan that outlines the United States’ shared security priorities States and Ecuador.

“We already have a very solid investment portfolio with Ecuador […]. And it’s about cooperation between the armed forces, between SOUTHCOM and the Ecuadorian armed forces,” General Richardson told the Ecuadorian daily Primicias in an interview in January. “Our portfolio is valued at $93.4 million and includes not only the transfer of military equipment, but also humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as well as professional military training. This also includes cyber assistance training and the exchange of special forces.”

For Álvarez, international cooperation on arms issues is also important for Ecuador. “Ecuador needs foreign technology and there could be the right cooperation in tracing in this area,” she said.

Given the central role of firearms in increasing violence in the country, reducing their illegal possession, diversion and trafficking is critical to ultimately thwarting organized crime, she concluded.