Post by asadul4986 on Feb 20, 2024 3:25:34 GMT -5
In the first days of January, the Andean country experienced the live kidnapping of television journalists at gunpoint, a prosecutor shot dead, the takeover of a hospital, bomb threats and prison staff taken hostage by inmates after a notorious criminal disappeared from his cell. President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency and told the BBC that the nation was “fighting every day not to become a narco-state.” But how is this country linked to the multimillion-dollar drug business that extends throughout the world? Advertisements Ecuador, once known as a tourist destination and the world's leading banana exporter, is now described as “the cocaine superhighway to the United States and Europe” by InSight Crime, a Washington-based think tank that specializes in investigate organized crime in America.
Geography has been a key factor in this transformation. Ecuador borders Colombia and Peru, the world's leading producers of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine. map BBC When the guerrilla group Revolutionary Costa Rica Mobile Number List Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016, one of the most important players in the drug trade in the region disappeared. But dissident cells and transnational criminal groups emerged, and with the drastic measures taken by Colombian security forces, gangs sought new routes to transport drugs to foreign markets.
In this search, they were drawn to ports on Ecuador's Pacific coast, such as Guayaquil. The country is now a major distribution corridor: Cocaine leaves the country by ship and plane, sometimes smuggled in banana containers, bound for markets in the United States and Europe. Ecuadorian gangs have also developed closer ties with drug traffickers in other countries such as Mexico. As gangs became more powerful, the homicide rate in Ecuador quadrupled between 2016 and 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Government statistics also show that in the first six months of 2023, police in Ecuador arrested more than 1,300 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 on suspicion of crimes such as murder, drug trafficking and possession of firearms.
Geography has been a key factor in this transformation. Ecuador borders Colombia and Peru, the world's leading producers of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine. map BBC When the guerrilla group Revolutionary Costa Rica Mobile Number List Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016, one of the most important players in the drug trade in the region disappeared. But dissident cells and transnational criminal groups emerged, and with the drastic measures taken by Colombian security forces, gangs sought new routes to transport drugs to foreign markets.
In this search, they were drawn to ports on Ecuador's Pacific coast, such as Guayaquil. The country is now a major distribution corridor: Cocaine leaves the country by ship and plane, sometimes smuggled in banana containers, bound for markets in the United States and Europe. Ecuadorian gangs have also developed closer ties with drug traffickers in other countries such as Mexico. As gangs became more powerful, the homicide rate in Ecuador quadrupled between 2016 and 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Government statistics also show that in the first six months of 2023, police in Ecuador arrested more than 1,300 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 on suspicion of crimes such as murder, drug trafficking and possession of firearms.