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Who is afraid of José Adolfo Macías Villamar (44), called ‘Fito’? All of Ecuador – and rightly so: since the drug lord disappeared without a trace from his prison cell, the country has been in chaos. With one terrorist attack after another, the people of Fito have been terrorizing the Ecuadorian population since the beginning of this week. They detonated car bombs, caused panic at universities and schools and stormed a television studio broadcasting news in Guayaquil. So far, ten people have died as a result of the violence.
President Daniel Noboa (36), who has only been in power since November, even declared a state of emergency for 60 days on Tuesday. And thus signaled: the country is practically in a kind of civil war.
Ecuador is the center of international drug wars
The power of the Ecuadorian drug cartels is virtually unlimited. Gangster boss Fito is already considered by many to be the country’s secret president. No wonder: he is the leader of the ‘Choneros’, which reportedly has more than 10,000 members in Ecuador. For comparison, Ecuador has a population of 17.8 million (as of 2021). But the gang’s power extends far beyond national borders. The “Choneros” are considered allies of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
The connection with the Mexican drug mafia also has dark sides for Fito: his gang is involved in a proxy war between the Mexican drug cartels. And: Shortly after Fito’s escape, a boss of the rival gang “Los Lobos”, which is linked to the Mexican cartel “Jalisco Nueva Generación” (CJNG) – the arch-enemy of the Sinaloa cartel – also managed to escape. The two criminal organizations responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Mexico are increasingly taking their conflicts to other Latin American countries.
Can the violence still be stopped?
So there are fires everywhere in Ecuador. But how did it get to this point? After all, Ecuador has long been considered one of the safest countries in Latin America. The answer lies in the country’s geographic location: Ecuador is located between Colombia and Peru, the two largest cocaine producers in the world.
The country has good infrastructure and, with Guayaquil, a large port that is difficult to control. In addition, the natural paradise of the Galapagos Islands, which belongs to Ecuador, is used as a drug transshipment point for transport to North America. In short: the country has become a playground for international drug cartels.
The situation seems hopeless, but President Noboa does not want to give up the fight against the drug mafia. After all, he started his presidency entirely dedicated to the fight against organized crime. Last week he also made concrete proposals: he announced that he would build a high-security prison in the Amazon region and house more gangsters on prison ships on the high seas.
He is also planning – following the example of Mexico and Colombia – a referendum that will allow him to extradite gangsters to the US. The measure is considered one of the most effective, but also the most controversial, in the fight against cartels; the gangsters of Latin America fear nothing as much as the US. They have no power there.
Why the US government is involved
And the US government under Democrat Joe Biden (81) is also very interested in curbing the violence linked to Latin America’s powerful drug cartels as quickly as possible: the violence – combined with economic hardship – has left tens of thousands Ecuadorians have fled. . The refugees usually come to the US via Mexico.
It would be a political nightmare for Biden if the flow of refugees from Latin America were to increase. He is accused of failing to control the refugee crisis – one of his weaknesses in the current election campaign.
That is why a meeting took place in September between the former president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso (68) and senior officials from the US Coast Guard and the Ministry of Defense in Washington. The result of this meeting was two status agreements, one of which allows for the stationing of U.S. Marines along the Ecuadorian coast, while the other allows for the landing of U.S. land forces on Ecuadorian territory, but only at the request of the Ecuadorian government. All this with the aim of combating drug trafficking organizations.
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
