By AFP | 2025-02-24

PUERTO BOLIVAR -- Ecuador faces a significant challenge in combating the growing influence of drug gangs on its lawless southwest coast, despite government efforts to enhance security.

In a darkened military command center near the Peruvian border, eight Ecuadorian marines armed with rusting M4 rifles prepare for a patrol.

For their safety, all are heavily masked. Name tags and rank insignia are removed.

Like much of once-tranquil Ecuador, Puerto Bolivar has become a battleground for rival cartels fighting to bring record amounts of cocaine from Colombia and Peru to Europe, North America and Asia.

Last year, the marines found about 30 bodies in waters near the port, some decapitated, others otherwise mutilated.

A recent bomb targeting a local gang leader killed two people and leveled several homes.

"There is no security," said one resident who asked not to be named for fear of being killed.

The marines tear away from the quay in two boats, racing through a mud-brown maze of canals and estuaries flanked by mangroves, docks and fishing villages.

Most of their four-hour patrol is unremarkable. They search a few fishing boats and find nothing.

But when they enter Huayala -- an estuary stuffed with ramshackle docks and cinder block buildings -- the unit snaps into position, their rifles cocked and raised.

The marines nervously scan the jumble of boats and buildings, where hundreds of eyes peer back from the shadows.

"It's not a good idea to stay here long," confides one of the marines. "Someone could take a shot."

Paying for 'vaccines'

Puerto Bolivar is one of the world's most important banana-exporting ports and a key seafood trading post, strategically vital for Ecuador's economy.

But today, the container cranes appear idle and the deepwater docks are mostly empty.

The boom businesses are extortion, kidnapping, assassination, illegal fishing, money laundering and cocaine trafficking.

Most locals are too scared to talk. "They might go as far as killing me or my family," said one old man before his wife pulled him away.

But a handful of residents are angry enough to speak out and risk their lives.

One of them is a local fisherman who agreed to speak to AFP on condition of anonymity.

He arrives at a secure meeting point wearing a facemask and cap and is determined to tell the world what is happening to his community and to his country.

He admits paying a "vacuna" or vaccine -- a monthly fee plus 20% of his catch in return for his safety -- to the gangs.

"If we ignore them, they sink our boats or steal our engines. Some fishermen have simply disappeared," he said.

Others happily work for the cartels because they pay more.

The fisherman described the myriad ways the gangs make money, from gold mining to smuggling fuel into Peru.

Some schemes are simple -- banana shipments loaded with cocaine and sent to Europe. Others are complex, involving the purchase of non-existent fish to launder money.

The names of the gangs and their leaders are well known to everyone -- Los Lobos (The Wolves), Los Lobos Box and Los Choneros.

"Some of them I have known since they were kids running around without shoes," said the fisherman.

Criminal influence is out in the open.

One of the area's numerous brothels is called "Napoles," in homage to the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's opulent estate of the same name.

The military admits that ranking figures in Mexico's Jalisco New Generation Cartel are deeply ingrained in the area. They visit and do business out in the open.

Plunged into violence

President Daniel Noboa has responded to Ecuador's security crisis by declaring a state of emergency, making high-profile arrests and sending the military onto the streets and into gang-controlled prisons.

Ecuador is home to an estimated 20 criminal gangs involved in trafficking, kidnapping and extortion, wreaking havoc in a country of 18 million squeezed between the world's biggest cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia.

In recent years, the nation has been plunged into violence by the rapid spread of transnational cartels that use its ports to ship drugs to the United States and Europe.

Homicides have risen from six per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018 to a record 47 in 2023.

Under a state of emergency and military crackdown launched by President Daniel Noboa, in office since November 2023, that figure dropped to 38 per 100,000 last year, according to official data.