Ecuador, facing drug trafficking – LA NACION

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The escalation of violence in Ecuador does not stop. To the attack against the prosecutor Cesar Suarezwho investigated the assault on the canal TC Televisionand the recent murder of the mayor of San Vicente, Brigitte Garciamore deaths are added.

There are already 6,626 people detained during the 30 days that followed the declaration, by the Government, of an internal armed conflict against organized crime. Of the total number of detainees, 241 were arrested for alleged terrorism, according to the latest daily report of the Ecuadorian government published on police and military operations carried out in the national territory. Some 22 gangs have been considered terrorist groups and non-state belligerent actors. Law enforcement also seized nearly 47 tons of drugs and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

It should not be forgotten that much of the responsibility for this boom in drug trafficking corresponds to the fugitive former president. Rafael Correa. It was he who gave carte blanche to the narcoterrorists of the Colombian Armed Forces (FARC) with the aim of setting up a camp within the country where courses on explosives, political proselytism and communist indoctrination were given to young people from American countries.

Drug gangs not only fight for huge profits or privileged routes. They look for spaces in the power structure. The infiltration of organized crime has been deep and diversified.

The Metastasis Operationlaunched by the attorney general, Diana Salazar, led to the capture of people accused of links to organized crime and is considered the largest process in history against corruption and drug trafficking. This operation reveals the x-ray of how drug trafficking took over State institutions to operate with ill-gotten money in judicial and political instances. The corruption network was made up of judges, tax agents, lawyers, police, and judicial and prison officials.

A judge, a former assemblyman, a former provincial prosecutor, a former commissioner for prison pacification and nine other people were involved in the investigation. The 13 defendants were discovered when the authorities advanced in the review of the cell phones of Leandro Norero, leader of a criminal network with connections to senior judicial, police, prison system and political officials, who was murdered last year in a prisoner brawl inside an Ecuadorian prison.

Ecuador is the victim of a continental criminal phenomenon. Their fate may inevitably affect regional security. Daniel Noboa and its government should not be left alone in the face of the challenge. Solidarity, support from the international community, shared intelligence, coordination of efforts and the exchange of best practices are essential to combat a problem that knows no limits.

THE NATION

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