How the equator went from tourists in a nation in the gang influence

“Things are dangerous at the moment. Death can come from anywhere,” said Paul. Small, skinny and about 30 years, he is a member of one of the most violent criminal gangs in the equator.

He believes that he is on the list of successes of a rival group for a year and a half and the only reason why he is still alive is thanks to the prayers of his mother: “It is as if God did not want me, and the devil will not make me go below.”

Paul (not his real name) explains that he spent about half of his life in the gang. Like many, he joined Young, when he was 15 years old. He thought it was going to be all “raves, parties and girls”.

While we are talking, we drive Guayaquil, the largest city in the equator. Paul is afraid that if he is still too long, his enemies of rival gangs – who wage a bloody war of lawn – will catch up with him. We therefore continue to move to make more difficult for anyone to follow us.

“I wanted to respect,” he said about his reasons to join one of the 20 gangs that contributed to the violence that changed the face of the equator.

Until recently considered one of the safest countries in the region, the Ecuador, which is also the gateway to the Galapagos Islands and which houses the tropical forest, attracted many tourists.

But now it has the highest murder rate in Latin America.

In 2023, police recorded around 8,000 violent deaths. It is eight times more than in 2018 and places the equator in front of countries like Mexico and Colombia.

President Daniel Noboa, who had taken an oath in only two months earlier, said the state of emergency. Since then, police have arrested more than 16,000 people.

The state of emergency ended on Monday, but the president maintained a state of “internal armed conflict”, the soldiers retaining exceptional powers.

He wants to introduce other measures such as stricter gun checks and more severe prison terms. These will be voted during a referendum on April 21.

There is no doubt that the life of many equations has changed due to the increase in gang violence.

Dr. Gabriela Almeida says she sees “more and more patients anxiety and people who suffer from panic attacks”.

Dr. Almeida herself avoids going out at night. “There was a kidnapping near here, four houses,” she explains.

“When I was a teenager, I remember seeing what was going on in Colombia,” she said about the drug-related violence in the neighboring country.

“We never thought that something could happen in our country,” she said, adding that she was planning to emigrate to Spain because in Ecuador “we live a nightmare”.

A large part of this nightmare has been fueled by the growth of drug trade.

Global production and cocaine consumption have reached record levels, according to the United Nations Bureau on Drugs and Crime.

Between 2020 and 2021, the production of cocaine increased by almost a third and international drug cartels began to seek new routes through which the cocaine produced in Colombia and Peru pass.

The Ecuador, who is sandwiched between Peru and Colombia and whose authorities were lacking in experience in the fight against trafficking, was considered the perfect option.

Consequently, the equator has been transformed into a global distribution center, where drugs are stored, prepared for transit – often hidden inside the shipping containers – and sent to their final destination.

Gangs like the one Paul is part of playing a key role.

Paul tells us that it has gone from the relatively small quantities of drugs to the trafficking of kilograms of cocaine. He said that his new role was to hide illegal drugs from other products inside shipping containers.

Ninety percent of illegal drugs leaving the equator are hidden inside shipping containers who leave the port of Guayaquil, according to the coast guard of the equator.

Coast guard has increased his surveillance, but he says that the risk for his staff has also increased.

“In the past, we were dealing with common criminals. Now, whoever we see could have high caliber weapons,” said one of the coast guard commanders, while we join his team on a boat patrolling the port and the surrounding regions.

He does not want us to reveal his name for fear of reprisals of the gangs and wears a gray hood to hide his face.

His armed team achieves up to four patrols per day, looking for gang members who use small boats to try to hide drugs in containers stacked on the huge ships.

The commander says that they have been hampered by corruption in the past and Paul confirms that the gang used to reimburse someone in the port to divert security cameras at key moments so that gang members can carry out their unlawful unlawful activities.

For Paul, more drug trafficking meant “more money, better weapons”. But that also sparked bloody grass wars between rival gangs.

“Everyone wants a territory. Territory for having sold drugs, a territory for trafficking – even to extort people from people and kidnap,” explains Paul.

When we ask why he refuses to leave the gang, he claims that he has been less involved since his hiding place, but the gang members who are looking for it are “everywhere”.

He tells us that he keeps his ties with his gang so that they provide him with a backup if necessary and more weapons to protect himself.

He could get back to the authorities, but he claims that “the only way to leave the gang would be to leave the country” because the gangs are active in the prisons.

After pushing him more about the nature of his involvement, he reluctantly admits that he killed people but says that he regrets destroying families.

“I feel remorse for having taken people's lives. I find it hard to sleep because it hurts so many people.”

When we have put all these questions to the government, we were told that it had “considerably reduced” the number of violent deaths “, eliminated the power of organized gangs” in prisons, investigated in cases of corruption, and which he won the fight against “the mafia”.

But people responsible for translating gang members have become targets. Six prosecutors have been killed in less than two years.

The comrade of the prosecutor Michelle Luna remembers him as “a very joyful person” who loved his work.

She and her colleagues fear that whoever tries to take violent gangs from the equator to now be a target for organized crime and that they require additional security measures. They want the identities of the prosecutors to be kept secret and so that remote hearings are brought so that they can avoid the risk of traveling in the same courtroom where the suspects are tried.

Although she has not received any threats personally, Luna worries, it is only a matter of time before she does it and plans to change career.

“If we do not get any guarantees on our security, I will have to resign,” she said. “Lawyers have not studied and practiced for years to do suicidal work.”