Ecuador tested by a coup attempt linked to drug trafficking and an unprecedented measure

Ecuador experiences a coup attempt linked to drug trafficking. These mafia gangs have taken over the country for years, to the point of transforming it into the largest exporter of cocaine to the world and are trying to tie the hands of Daniel Noboa’s brand new government He ordered the armed forces to take to the streets to regain control of the state.

That’s a measure I will observe with particular attention in the regional neighborhood experiencing the growth and threat of these organized crime organizations to varying degrees

The epidemic, which the Ecuadorian mafias are promoting in these hours, multiplying into over 30 violent attacks, explosions, attacks and kidnappings of policemen, including the takeover of a television channel, seeks to limit this progress by the Executive.

The pressure against the new government began with the silent escape from prison of José Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias Fito, considered the most dangerous criminal in the country. He is the leader of the mafia The Coneros with those who dispute power The wolves, both prebendary organizations of the Mexican cartels, Jalisco Nueva Generación and Sinaloa respectively.

That leak sought to undermine the president who campaigned on promises to liquidate drug traffickers. During the elections the name of Macías Villamar was circulated as a possible leader of the murder by a hitman of presidential candidate and journalist Fernando Villavicencio.

The dead politician was a famous investigator of links between the state and the mafia, often quoted the gangster Fito and was an informant for former president Rafael Correa. Let us remember this as a sign of the tension that existed between the applicants in those elections They carried out their actions wearing bulletproof vests.

Prisons, drug barracks

One of the axes of this problem is in prisons, which all governments have subsequently lost and become control of mafia headquarters.

From there they buy the obedience of their jailers, magistrates, public officials and so on throughout the scale, as Villavicencio himself denounced in his legendary Rice bookwhich revealed how they handled public agents millions of dollars in bribes during Correism. A practice that subsequently continued with a state lacking the tools to face such an enemy.

Noboa has the intention and need to regain control of the prisons and contain this violence to secure his political career. He is carrying forward what remains of his predecessor Guillermo Lasso’s government he should have resigned pressured by a maneuver promoted among others by Correa to carry out a political process.

After the drug leader’s escape, Noboa upped the ante and ordered the army to enter prisons and locate drug kingpins. It was the first time he had transferred to the Armed Forces. In this sense in a country that he maintains strong restrictions on use to the military in internal security. This alternative was legalized with last Monday’s decree which established a state of emergency for 60 days.

The drug trafficking groups reacted this Tuesday to this measure with a rebellion of unpredictable development, warning him They will not accept transfers from drug leaders and that they will kill policemen and soldiers. A declaration of war.

Noboa wasted no time. He immediately characterized drug traffickers as a terrorist force “of transnational organized crime,” which he noted exists “an internal armed conflict” and ordered the military to act, therefore, in defense of the country to regain control of it.

It is a very serious bet, not so much for the Executive’s decision but for what lies ahead.

Ecuador has become a key point for the storage and transfer of medicines produced in the region.

The port of Guayaquil, one of the busiest in South America, is a key point for drug trafficking due to lax surveillance systems. They pass by there, according to data collected by The New York Times, 300,000 containers every month, but the authorities can only control a small part of them.

The drug is taken hidden in shipments of fruit, cocoa or crafts and are received by a network in the north of the world. This equates to 700-800 tons of cocaine per year, according to academic Fernando Carrión, an Ecuadorian specialist in citizen safety.

Most are sent to the United States, but also to Brazil where consumption is currently at record levels. Another part continues towards Europe and the rest remains in Ecuador. To evaluate what it is, consider a kilo of that drug. which in the region is traded for around 2,000 dollars. they reach almost 30 thousand in the north of the world, the experts illustrate.

The assassination of Villavicencio during the elections and this coup rebellion of the drug mafias try to demonstrate that criminals are those who impose the rules. Noboa’s bet is precisely to reverse this situation. Let’s hope he’s right.