A new year and a new chapter has begun in Ecuador, one that those living there perhaps rather wish hadn’t. The escape of a notorious drug lord on Sunday from one of the country’s prisons, and the storming of a live TV broadcast by armed men, reads like a cliched plotline for a narco drama. ‘Don’t shoot. Please, don’t shoot’, a woman can be heard pleading, while she and her colleagues are held hostage.
The dramatic incident is part of an eruption of violence that has besieged the South American country in the last few days. When President Daniel Noboa – who’s not even hit two months in the job – declared a two-month ‘state of emergency’ on Monday following the weekend’s prison break, nightly curfews were introduced, and the police and military were mobilised to take control of prisons. Noboa’s intention was to eliminate violence, not encourage it. Yet police kidnappings, torched cars, prison riots – and the terrifying scenario at the TV station – ensued. While the hostages at the TV station were eventually rescued, saving Ecuador from the grip of its narco nightmare won’t be so easy.
With the Amazon rainforest covering half of its territory, and as a gateway to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador has until recently enjoyed its reputation as a tourist and nature hotspot. Although Ecuador is on the cocaine highway through South America, neatly tucked between the world’s two top cocaine-producing nations of Peru and Colombia, it had been one of South America’s least dangerous countries until the past few years. Drug trafficking, of course, did take place: that’s nothing new. Yet the scale of violence in recent years is with gangs vying for control over territory and drug smuggling routes. In 2023 there were around 8,000 violent deaths, according to police data, up fourfold from 2021 – the year that set the country on a trajectory following a series of prison massacres after the murder of a powerful gang leader in prison.
Promises to reverse Ecuador’s hellish descent into violence came thick and fast during Noboa’s presidential campaign ahead of last October’s snap elections, especially after the campaign itself was marred by bloodshed with the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavivencio. Noboa’s bold plans for longer prison sentences and ‘floating’ prisons off the shore of Ecuador were lapped up by much of the electorate that voted the heir to a banana fortune into power. His modus operandi was to isolate the country’s most dangerous criminals – like Adolfo Macías Villamar, commonly known as Fito, the criminal and leader of the powerful Los Choneros group – and the guy who pulled-off the mysterious vanishing act just a few days ago.
Since taking office, President Noboa – currently one of the youngest heads of state in the world at 36 – has remained resolute in this plan insisting that severing communication links between gang members both inside and outside the prisons will quash the infestation of criminality. This month, construction is supposed to begin on two maximum security prisons, similar to those built in El Salvador, a country that has seen violence plunge under authoritarian President Nayib Bukele – although at the expense of the protection of human rights.
The latest state of emergency seems to have rattled the country’s gangs
Noboa can’t claim this ‘communication cutting’ strategy as his own, yet tackling the criminal structures within prisons is imperative. Yet so far, no one has been able to do it. Ecuador already has a maximum security prison – La Roca – in the port city of Guayaquil. Closed for 13 years, it reopened in 2022 in a bid to keep criminal leaders separated. Prisons are the nerve centres for drug gangs. From behind bars, leaders of criminal outfits, like Los Choneros, organise logistics for drug trafficking, implement extortion plans where homes and businesses pay ‘protection’ fees, and order hitmen to take out those who don’t play by the rules. The curse of corruption has emboldened gang members, where prison staff are coerced into offering exorbitant privileges to inmates in exchange for criminal intelligence – or perhaps, out of fear. Two prison officers were arrested in connection with Fito’s disappearance shortly after he was found missing. Prisons in Ecuador are dangerous places. Since 2021, around 450 inmates have been killed since 2021, some tortured and beheaded.
Ecuador is no stranger to emergency decrees like the one issued earlier this week. They were widely used by the last three governments during spikes of violence, where police and military would temporarily take control of prisons. But the latest state of emergency seems to have rattled the country’s gangs, intent on stifling Noaba’s plan before he’s barely begun. ‘You declared war. You will get war’, a message from Ecuador’s gangs read out by a kidnapped policeman said, delivered shortly before the attack on a public TV station.
Noboa is remaining steadfast – and for the first time in the country’s history has announced an ‘internal armed conflict’ against 22 of Ecuador’s gangs, ordering the armed forces to carry out operations to ‘neutralise’ the groups. He’s opted for a heavy-handed, no-nonsense approach, but previous presidents failed to rein in the violence – despite hoping to do so. A solution to this crippling chaos still hasn’t been found, and until now, neither has Fito.
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