THE MAFIAS WANT ECUADOR TO BE A PRISON, WILL THE WORLD ALLOW IT?​

In Ecuador everyone admits it. Prisons are not controlled by the State, they are controlled by the organized crime mafias that have made prisons their stronghold, their school, their recruiting ground, their arsenal, their center of operations.

From there, Internet phone in hand, the capos give instructions to their lieutenants on the outside, to the lawyers who give bribes to judges, to the police who warn of operations and guard their assets, to the politicians – those they have put on the ballot -, to the officials they have co-opted with money or threats.

It is also where they stage their wars to the death for control of the illicit businesses they operate. The prison massacres that have been taking place since the end of the last decade are largely the product of this struggle for who is the strongest among the mafia groups, always momentary victories in an infinite war.

And those groups, previously silent, previously moving between anonymity and the consent of the political power, are now coming out to show their full power. Not only do they want to subdue the new government of Daniel Noboa, whom they threaten just as they did his two predecessors. Now they have coordinated attacks in public areas, which have been taking place since the night of January 8.

They have assured that they will attack anyone who is in the streets after 11:00 p.m. (the time when the curfew decreed by the Government begins). It is terrorism operating at the national level. It is the war of terror through which they want Ecuador to be a prison that they control.

As I try to follow this line of discourse trying to explain to those who do not live here what is happening in Ecuador, I get impatient. My wife ran to see my oldest daughter at the university where she studies to bring her home. For her to return by bus, as she usually does, seems like a very bad idea today.

Who knows if the criminals have planted any explosives at the bus stations. They already did it on a pedestrian bridge in Quito, they already burned vehicles in eight provinces the night before, they already set fire to a trailer carrying new cars. They have already kidnapped policemen. This afternoon they have already taken over a media outlet and forced a live broadcast of the assault. …. No, don’t come by bus. You have to go and see her.

My wife, who has finished her work at full speed, says I’m coming. She takes the car and leaves, surely with the radio on, following every detail of the assault on the channel.

I am trying to resume the analysis. This Tuesday afternoon, January 9, 2024, President Daniel Noboa has just declared twenty criminal groups as terrorists. Twenty of them! And, the authorities say that they can add others. How did we arrive at that? It is not easy to summarize, but it can be said that the geographical and social situation of the country has brought us to this serious moment.

In the north of Ecuador, for many years, the Colombian guerrillas weaved a network of support for their activities, such as drug trafficking, which they developed in conjunction with international drug cartels.

This illicit merchandise, increasingly numerous and more valuable, was produced in Colombia and exited through Ecuadorian ports to the US and Central America at first, and then also to Europe. They therefore needed help from local groups. The cartels used them to transport drugs, to store them, to provide security for their shipments.

Under the protection of these cartels, criminal groups such as Los Choneros, Los Lobos, Los Tiguerones, Los Chone Killers… emerged and/or grew.

Many of them were splinters of primary groups. Others emerged from youth gangs. And they are largely made up of young people born and raised in cities and provinces historically neglected by the state, members of dysfunctional families, broken by migration due to lack of employment, poverty or vice. Young people who found in these groups a destiny, a fatal one.

I cannot go on. When I think of these young people, I think of my other daughter, the youngest. I was able to see her earlier at the end of school, which is nearby. Today, more than ever, I had to bring her along. Out of fear. And that up to that moment the assault on the TV station had not happened. We found out about it while we were having lunch together. She is here, doing her homework. I would like to isolate her, not to let her know what’s going on so she doesn’t worry so much. But I can’t turn off the TV, because the crisis of the seizure of the channel implies an uninterrupted transmission, which leaves sounds of sirens, helicopters, detonations and screams in the background.

And even if I could turn the volume down, she has a cell phone. Suddenly, she gets up from her chair, comes to my desk and shows me a photo that a classmate sent to the course chat. It shows three armed men pointing guns at civilians, lying face down on the floor of a recently opened Quito Metro station. I look at the photo, looking for signs of photomontage, that it is a case in another country. Nothing. It is a real photo. It’s here, in a station in the south of Quito. Let me find out, I tell him, as calmly as possible. I search and find that the image is real, but from a simulation made in the past days. I tell my daughter and ask her to tell her classmates. I smile at her while thinking “damn fake news”.

I concentrate again. Or I try to. These criminal groups are fighting so far to be the lords and masters of a territory that no one else can touch. The biggest ones are trying to control everything. The murders that have been unleashed in Ecuador, in the streets and in the prisons, since the end of the last decade, are largely due to these disputes.

But the gangs have long understood that, to win, to continue operating and growing, they must not only defeat their rivals on the streets: they must also avoid the operations against them, expand into other lines of action (such as illegal mining, extortion, kidnapping, human trafficking) and guarantee themselves impunity if they are caught. They understood then that they had to take over the control institutions.

They are not together yet. My wife says she has not yet reached the meeting point with my eldest daughter. There is vehicular chaos in the city. We were not the only ones who thought that today we had to go home as soon as possible. Everything has changed on this unfortunate day. It is 4:00 p.m. and the stores have closed. Fortunately, the crisis at the TV station, which had us all on edge, is over. The police have controlled the situation and 13 people have been arrested.

On TV I hear that the Government is suspending on-site classes. My youngest daughter hears the news and gives me a thumbs up. What a relief, I say to myself, but also, how sad.

I force myself to go back to the text. The so-called Metastasis case has revealed the extent of the infiltration of organized crime in state institutions. It is an investigation by the State Attorney General’s Office that has revealed the connections of a drug lord with judges, lawyers, businessmen, politicians and even shady relationships with journalists.

It is about Leandro Norero, who was murdered in prison in October 2022. At the time of his death, the Attorney General’s Office seized the cell phone he was illegally using in his cell. The chats contained in the device, which gave 14 thousand pages of conversations, led to the prosecution of about thirty national judges, provincial judges, prosecutors, police and businessmen who facilitated the business and sought the impunity of Norero and his family, through the control of the judicial apparatus and the influence in the political field.

These links were denounced at the time by Fernando Villavicencio, the presidential candidate who was assassinated in the middle of the election campaign in August 2023, in Quito.

The case is just beginning and the scope, especially at the political level, remains to be seen.

“I’ve arrived where we were supposed to meet. We are on our way home,” my wife writes me. I take a breath. I call her and she tells me they are fine, but she can’t say what time they will arrive. The city is still chaotic. They will try to take shortcuts to get back as soon as possible. But they are fine. They are together. I keep thinking that I should have gone.

The anguish has subsided. I return to the screen. The Metastasis case threatens to uncover high-level connections. The Prosecutor’s Office presented the case during the days when the National Assembly of the Citizen Revolution party, of former President Rafael Correa, was pushing for a political trial against the Attorney General. A process that continues, although perhaps with fewer options to prosper now that the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Diana Salazar, has received widespread support from the authorities of the Executive and the Legislative, as well as from legal and academic sectors. More than a few people in the media and social networks are calling for the protection of the Prosecutor.

It was her, in one of the public hearings last week in the National Court, who told that she knew of a plan to kill her and that it was Fabricio Colón Pico, one of the leaders of Los Lobos, who was behind this plan.

The Government reacted and arrested Colón Pico in Quito last Friday. The police action was congratulated by President Noboa, who in an interview over the weekend said that the Government had plans for Adolfo Macias, alias Fito, leader of the Los Choneros gang, who was being held in a prison in Guayaquil. Noboa did not say what those plans were about. But Fito apparently knew about them.

On Sunday, when the police went to his cell with the purpose of taking him to a maximum security prison, Fito was not there. He had escaped.  

It was then that President Noboa decreed a state of exception, including a curfew, from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., for two months.

Surely they arrive before the curfew. Impossible for them to take that long. No. They will arrive much sooner. I’m sure they will. They must be close by now.

I’ll be back. The reaction to the decree was a wave of terrorist attacks that included attacks with explosives, burning cars, kidnapping of police and prison officers in at least eight provinces of Ecuador. All, since Monday night and during the early hours of the morning and Tuesday afternoon.

The criminals recorded some of the attacks and even said they would kill anyone who was on the streets during curfew hours.

The most publicized act was the seizure of the TC Televisión channel in Guayaquil. The assailants wanted to go live and succeeded at times. Before the signal was cut, they were heard saying: “We are on the air so that they know that we do not play with the mafia”. Shots and screams were heard from the media workers, who were forced to lie on the floor.

Another channel, Teleamazonas, continues to broadcast the development of the crisis and interviews General Wagner Bravo, former Secretary of Security. He emphasizes that these attacks are not to defend a business. They are not preventing a roadblock, they are not preventing the closure of an illegal mine, they are not trying to protect a drug shipment. “This is an attack on the state,” Bravo says.

The phone vibrates. Perhaps because of some momentary interruption in the phone service, I get a lot of messages all at once. None of them are from my wife. Most of them are from colleagues outside the country. They ask for a piece of information, a statement, a text, a contact, an explanation, a confirmation. They are interested in telling what is happening in Ecuador. How grateful I am. But not only that. Each one tells me that they are with me, with my family, with my compatriots. That they join our concerns, that they are theirs. They wish us better days. They tell me to take care of myself. They tell me that they love me. And that makes me not feel alone and without outlets.

It is an attack against the State, Bravo says. And the state must respond with full force and within the law. Yes, of course, it has to, but it has tried before and the mafias have not lost their power.

I believe that in the conditions in which it is, it is difficult for the state to face this serious situation alone, because institutional weakness is one of the most serious problems in the country, due to corruption and the infiltration of drug traffickers.

The international community must support the Ecuadorian society, its authorities, its control entities, those who fight against these mafias, which have international connections, and whose illicit activities affect not only the Ecuadorian citizens.

Strong and decisive support is required from the UN, the OAS, the European Union, the Andean Community, the governments of the region, the governments of other continents. It is important a strong support, without hesitation, so that the Ecuadorian society and its legitimate authorities do not feel that they are fighting alone and at a disadvantage against a monster with a thousand heads and infinite resources.

It is important that there be widespread support so that criminals also know that their actions can be prosecuted wherever they have an impact. Let the mafias assume that Ecuador’s weakened institutional framework can be compensated with a strong institutional framework of friendly, supportive and empathetic nations and institutions.

The dog goes to the window, barks, sniffs quickly. He is able to hear the vehicle from far away. That tells me they are coming. And so they are. After three hours, which seemed like a hundred to me, my wife has arrived home with my daughter. They are safe and sound. I hug my daughter, still carrying her backpack. I’m fine, she tells me, and smiles. My wife takes a while to come in. She is writing to her sister who lives in Guayaquil. She enters calmly, smiling. We hug. We are all at home, together, in this hellish journey.

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Carlos Mora, Ecuadorian journalist, is secretary general of EditoRed.

This text is for free use. If you use it, please cite the author and EditoRed.