A drug gangs brings an otherwise peaceful society to its knees.
HECHULAYI, Ecuador — “Metastasis” was the name of the grand investigation that sought to uncover ties between the vicious drug gangs of Ecuador and certain members of the country’s political and legislative elite. Notable defense attorneys, high-ranking judges, and police and jail officials were among the 30 individuals arrested on December 14, according to Ecuador’s attorney general. She said that they were all involved in a criminal conspiracy that benefited a prominent drug dealer in the nation.
BY SIRAJ April -12-2024 EAST 14:54
“Fellow countrymen, the Metastasis case is a clear X-ray of how drug trafficking has taken over the institutions of the state,” stated Diana Salazar Méndez, the country’s top law enforcement official, in a video speech from her fortress headquarters.
There would be retaliation from the gangs, she cautioned.
Ecuador, a nation of 18 million people, appeared to be on the brink of collapse for several hours on January 9 until that reaction came.
COURTESY WASHINGTON POST
In jails, where gangs had long controlled the situation, riots broke out. Multiple cities were targeted by car bombs. An alleged gang member fatally shot two police officers in a nearby town, and Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city and a key location for the cocaine trade, saw at least nine people shot and killed. The abduction of seven further police officers occurred. A bomb threat was among many that Salazar and her colleagues had to leave their offices in Quito, the capital, because of.
The studio of one of the most popular afternoon news programs in Ecuador was attacked by a group of armed men, who then held more than a dozen members of the channel’s crew hostage while the cameras were rolling. Inside the Guayaquil location of TC Televisión, shots were fired, and one of the individuals who had opened fire yelled out, “Don’t mess with the mafia.”
As a response to the violence, President Daniel Noboa signed a decree that declared “internal armed conflict.” This decree designated 22 criminal gangs as terrorist organizations and authorized the authorities to mobilize the military against them. Included in this decree was the deployment of soldiers to reestablish control within prisons.
The nation’s prisons had evolved into places where criminal organizations could conduct their illegal enterprises and where they could engage in territorial conflicts with one another. During the years 2021 and 2022, gang-on-gang killings in prisons claimed the lives of hundreds of individuals. At this point, the gangs were posing a threat to the state itself.
