16th November 2020
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Picturesque Ecuador has become an unfortunate haven for organised crime due to its lax regime.
It is an often reported fact that an incredible 90 per cent of the world’s illicit cocaine supplies come from either Colombia or Peru.
But look at the two countries on any map, and one very obvious geographical fact leaps at you from the page. Sandwiched between these two well-known narco states sits Ecuador – a country which receives considerably less global media attention in the battle against organised crime.
Yet is should receive attention. A lot of it.
Ecuador has become an inadvertent haven for organised crime due in part to this strategic geographic importance – and domestic laws and practices which provide convenient cover for OCGs which gravitate towards Latin America from across the world.
This fact was highlighted once again in September when Europol, Europe’s anti-organised crime force, revealed that it had significantly disrupted a powerful Albanian-led OCG trafficking cocaine throughout Europe: the Kompania Bello.
Incredibly, Albanian media later reported that the alleged ‘Mr Big’ directing the trafficking gang is currently in jail in Ecuador and had, allegedly, been running his empire from a jail cell for six years.
Over the past twenty years, OCGs operating from the Balkans have gradually – and quietly – gained increasing influence within the drug trafficking market by establishing direct links with Latin America. As a consequence, you’re now as likely to stumble across Albanian narcos in Quito as you are the better-known Ndrangheta from Calabria, Italy.
As well as proximity to the two largest cocaine producers in the world, Ecuador offers a political and economic regime considered far too relaxed by agencies tackling organised crime.
As this risk bulletin produced by the Civil Society Observatory to Counter Organised Crime in South Eastern Europe (SEE-Obs) reveals: “Ecuador seems popular for criminal groups because the country is situated between Colombia and Peru, which together produce around 90% of the world’s cocaine. It is also easy to come and go: there is visa-free travel for up to 90 days, no national database of fingerprints or identity photos, and it is reportedly easy to change one’s identity and purchase fraudulent documents, such as ID cards and passports.”
In addition, there are concerns about Ecuador’s political instability, weak criminal justice system, porous borders and large cash-based economy. There is no law in Ecuador allowing the state to seize criminal assets from drug trafficking. Famously, there is also little extradition, intelligence or information co-operation between Ecuador and international bodies.
Of course, Ecuador has made some moves towards a more effective anti-crime regime in recent years. It would be wrong for anybody to assume that nothing has been done.
But with Colombia and other “narco states” having made more meaningful strides towards political stability and less reliance on organised crime, what may be needed in Latin America now is further political and legal movement from officials in Quito to prevent Ecuador from becoming the key haven for OCGs in South America and beyond.
Go to the SEE-Obs link above to read more about why action from Ecuador is crucial.
Note: I’m conscious that when media refer to ‘Albanian’ or ‘Italian’ OCGs in reporting, what they really often mean is ‘Albanian-led’ or ‘Italian-led’ etc. As this excellent summary piece by academic Anna Sergi in 2019 explains articulately, criminal gangs are often defined in the media by their ethnicity – even though they rarely operate along exclusively ethnic lines, particularly when their trafficking activities require the movement of goods or people through multiple regions, suppliers and producers. So wherever possible, I’ll endeavour to use the wordy, but more accurate, (for example) ‘UK-led’ description if it seems more appropriate.
Photograph: Quito, Ecuador by Cesar Viteri.
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