- Author, Ana Maria Raura and Blanca Moncada
- Role, BBC – Spanish Service
“The situation is dangerous, and death could come from anywhere,” said Paul, a small, thin young man, about 30 years old.
A member of one of the most violent gangs in Ecuador, he believes he has been on a rival gang’s target list for a year and a half, and the only reason he is alive so far is because of his mother’s prayers for him. Speaking about this, he told us: “It seems that God does not want me up, and Satan does not want to take me down.”
Paul, a pseudonym, confirmed to us that he spent about half his life in the gang, having joined it – like many – as a child, when he was 15 years old. He thought it was all “noisy parties and girls.”
As we talked, during a tour of Guayaquil — the largest city in Ecuador where as many as 20 gangs are waging bloody turf wars — Paul was afraid to stay in one place for so long that his enemies wouldn’t catch up with him, so we were constantly moving until it was… Much more difficult for anyone trying to track us.
“I wanted respect,” he said, but he and his gang undoubtedly played a role in the violence that changed the face of Ecuador.
The country was once among the safest destinations in Latin America – home to the rainforests and gateway to the Galapagos Islands – but it has undergone a major transformation in the past five years.
It is now witnessing the highest homicide rate among Latin American countries, with police recording about 8,000 violent deaths in 2023, eight times more than the numbers recorded in 2018, according to the Ecuadorian Ministry of the Interior. These statistics also place it ahead of countries such as Mexico and Colombia.
image source, Getty Images
In January, Ecuador made headlines around the world when masked gunmen seized a television station during a live broadcast. At the same time, gangs carried out kidnappings and bombings in several cities coinciding with riots inside prisons.
President Noboa, who was sworn in just two months ago, declared a state of emergency with the aim of trapping drug traffickers.
The country’s president said: “The terrorist drug gangs want to terrorize us, thinking that we might submit to their demands. But we will not negotiate with the terrorists.” Since then, police have arrested more than 16,000 people.
The state of emergency ended last Monday, but the president maintained the state of “internal armed conflict,” with the army retaining exceptional powers.
He also wants to take further measures, such as imposing stricter restrictions on carrying weapons and tougher prison sentences, which will be put to a vote in a referendum on April 21.
Fear of going out into the street
Gang activities – such as the Paul Gang – have had a profound impact on daily life, and the presence of these groups has led to an increase in kidnapping and extortion.
As a result, a large number of those we spoke to confirmed that they changed their lifestyles and began spending less time outside the home, especially at night. The government imposed a night-time curfew in several cities, including Guayaquil and the capital, Quito.
“I see a significant increase in the number of patients suffering from anxiety and many people are having panic attacks,” said Gabriela Almeida, a doctor in Quito.
This doctor lives in a residential complex surrounded by a fence and has changed her lifestyle to avoid going out at night. When she leaves home, she waits inside the compound until the taxi arrives and always sends her location to her family members while on the move.
“There was a kidnapping four blocks from here girls,” Gabriella said. She added: “When I was a teenager, we were watching what was happening in Colombia and we never imagined that something like this could happen in our country. Your wallet could be stolen on the bus or something like that. But I am not afraid of being killed, we are living in a nightmare.”
As an unmarried mother with a young child, Gabriela is seriously considering immigrating to Spain.
She spoke to us about this, saying: “I want to give my son a future in which he can walk in the streets without fear of being assaulted or kidnapped.”
Ecuador as a drug hub
image source, Getty Images
As President Noboa said, there are a lot of questions that need answers regarding the growth of the drug trade in the country. Paul’s story echoes what the chief said, as he told us that when he joined the gang he worked for, he began trafficking marijuana and cocaine in his area.
But since then, worldwide cocaine production and consumption have reached record levels, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Between 2020 and 2021 alone, the rate of cocaine production increased by about a third.
Drug gangs in Mexico, Colombia and Albania began looking for new places to operate. Ecuador was the focus of attention of these gangs as the ideal option, as it shares borders with the two largest cocaine-producing countries in the world – Colombia and Peru – and its authorities lack experience in combating drug trafficking.
As a result, Ecuador has become a global distribution center for drugs where drugs are stored and prepared for transport, often hidden inside shipping containers and sent to their final destination. Gangs play a major role in all of these stages.
Paul told us this meant turning from a distributor selling relatively small quantities to a smuggler dealing with kilos of cocaine. He assured us that his new role was to “capture” or “mine” the shipping containers – meaning carefully hiding the drugs among the other products inside.
More than three-quarters of Ecuador’s exports – including bananas and shrimp – depart from the port of Guayaquil on the Pacific coast while 90 percent of drugs and illicit substances leave inside shipping containers of legitimate goods, according to the Ecuadorian Coast Guard.
Since declaring a state of “internal armed conflict”, the Armed Forces have intensified their surveillance missions.
“In the past, we were dealing with common criminals,” one Coast Guard commander told us as we joined his team on a boat patrolling the harbor and surrounding areas. “Now, anyone we see can be carrying high-caliber weapons.”
This leader spoke to us on the condition that his name not be mentioned for fear of retaliation from the gangs. He also wore a black mask to hide his face.
His armed team carries out about four surveillance patrols daily, searching for gang members on speedboats trying to hide drugs in containers stacked with ordinary goods on board large commercial ships.
It has been historically proven that corruption often complicates the Coast Guard’s mission. According to Paul, there is a person in the port who keeps the surveillance cameras away from criminals while engaging in illegal activities if he gets enough money.
The Coast Guard Commander admitted to us, “There are many corrupt people within the regime.” He said: “Sometimes we think that containers are mined with drugs at checkpoints inside the port, but most likely they arrive there already mined.”
“Everyone wants to control the Earth”
For Paul, smuggling means “more money, better weapons.”
The rate of weapon confiscations by Ecuadorian police has increased by 58.00 percent since 2020, according to official figures. The police believe that the increase in the quantities of weapons confiscated means that there are much larger quantities of weapons circulating in the country.
Tensions between gangs on the streets as well as inside prisons, which likely witnessed the most violent wave of bloody riots in 2021, are behind the spread of violence in the country.
“Everyone wants to control the land, land to sell drugs, land to deal in drugs, and even steal money from people and kidnap,” Paul said.
When we asked him why he refused to leave the gang, Paul claimed he had become less involved since he went into hiding, but that the men looking for him were “everywhere”. He also told us that he maintains contacts with his gang so that they can provide him with support if necessary and more weapons to protect himself.
It is possible that he will surrender himself to the authorities, but he confirms that “the only way to get out of the gang is to leave the country,” as gangs are also active in prisons.
After intense pressure to find out the extent of his involvement in gang activities, Paul reluctantly admitted that he had killed people. But he stressed that he “regrets” the actions he committed that led to the destruction of families, saying: “I feel remorse because I took lives, and I swear to you that I regret all the harm I caused to many people.”
Fight for justice and suffer from injustice
As the state attempts to tackle gangs, those responsible for bringing criminals to justice are being targeted, with six Ecuadorian prosecutors killed in less than two years.
Cesar Suarez was one of these victims, as he led the investigation team into the attack on the television station and other corruption cases within the framework of the case known in the media as “the malignant tumor.” Prosecutor Suarez was shot dead in Guayaquil last January.
“He was a very fun person… a gentleman, and he also loved his work,” Michelle Luna, a prosecutor who was a colleague of Suarez, told us.
When she was six years old, Michelle’s father was the victim of a scam. She assured us that “from this young age, I understood the true meaning of injustice and I took it upon myself to fight it when I grew up.”
But now she fears for her life and is thinking about changing her career. While talking about this, Michelle said: “If we do not get any other guarantees about our safety, I will have to resign.”
She and her fellow prosecutors want their identities to remain secret and their hearings to be held remotely so they can avoid the risk of traveling to the same courtroom as criminals.
Prosecutor Diana Salazar, who has received violent threats, is investigating the ties between drug traffickers and state institutions in the context of the “malignant tumor” case. She also called on the police and army to make more efforts to help.
When we raised all these issues with the government, it told us that it had “significantly reduced” the number of violent deaths, “eliminated the power of organized gangs” inside prisons, investigated corruption cases, and won its battle against the “mafia.”
But resources remain an obstacle to eliminating organized crime in Ecuador, which prompted Michelle to ask: “How can one prosecutor, with only two people assisting him, handle up to 5,000 cases?”
Although she has not received threats, she is concerned because she believes it is only a matter of time until she is exposed. She expressed concerns that anyone trying to confront violent gangs in Ecuador could now become a target for organized crime.
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