Since Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict” against organized crime and gangs in early January, the South American country’s security forces have been dedicated to regaining peace and security and curbing the violence across the territory. Within this framework, the Ecuadorian Armed Forces successfully seized some 30 tons of illicit drugs in the first six months of the year, the Defense Ministry said in a September 13 statement.
In the same timeframe, service members seized nearly 3,000 weapons, more than 55,000 explosive devices, and destroyed nine coca processing structures, among other feats. Military units are also continuously patrolling borders and remain active in correction centers and prisons to maintain order, the statement added.
Despite the recent murders of two prison directors in early September in an attempt by gangs to regain control, Carla Álvarez, a professor at the School of Security and Defense of Ecuador’s Institute for Higher National Studies, acknowledges that her country’s prisons are experiencing a period of pacification under military control. However, she suggests implementing measures in preparation for the Armed Forces’ departure.
“If we want prisons to function without the military mechanism, we must think about what the prisons need. We should have different types of methodology and technology,” Álvarez told Diálogo on September 28. “Inside the prisons we need control devices, such as scanners or cell phone signal inhibitors and technology to detect and shoot down drones, which introduce explosives and other types of contraband artifacts.”
In its quest to regain peace and security, Ecuador called on and received the support of partner nations. Among those, the United States, which has a longstanding friendship with the South American country, stepped up efforts to help Ecuador to strengthen security across a broad spectrum. In the wake of the increased violence, in January, the United States delivered more than $1 million worth of critical security and emergency response equipment, deployed various teams from the FBI to Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard, among many others, to help support ongoing training of Ecuadorian security personnel. In March, the United States vowed to invest $10 million to combat narcotrafficking, a U.S. Department of State statement indicated.
Support also came from further away. In August, for example, the National Service for the Comprehensive Care of Adults Deprived of their Liberty and Adolescent Offenders received security equipment valued at $2.5 million from the European Union to increase prison control and surveillance, Ecuadorian newspaper Expreso reported.
“We have reduced violence rates by more than 20 percent in almost all its forms, but to continue improving this fight, we extend our hand and ask for your support,” President Noboa told partner nations during the Latin American Security Summit 2024, held in Guayaquil in August. “Defeating terrorism and its criminal networks is an urgent mission, which requires international cooperation and the help of all multilateral organizations.”
Security methodology and technology
The Security Bloc, an elite police and military team formed in 2023 to confront organized crime, has been maintaining control of prisons. According to El País, authorities have made progress in curbing riots and massacres, as well as in eliminating all unregulated communication with the outside world.
The Bloc’s interventions resulted in an 18 percent decrease in violence in the country, the Interior Ministry said in August. This represents a reduction of 804 intentional homicides so far in 2024, compared to the same period last year.
“Declaring the criminal gangs terrorists is already a meritorious act,” Wilson Goyes, an Ecuadorian security expert, told France 24. “Handling violence in prisons is also a meritorious act.”
The Bloc foiled an attack with a drone loaded with explosives on maximum security prison La Roca, built in 2008 on the outskirts of Guayaquil to isolate the country’s most dangerous criminals, the Defense Ministry said on September 5.
“We suspect that the attack’s intent was to trigger the transfer of prisoners out of La Roca to other penitentiaries,” Defense Minister Giancarlo Loffredo told reporters. “But this government will not allow the will of crime to rule.”
Authorities, through the 131 Reward Plan, offered a cash reward in exchange for information to locate the perpetrators of the attack on La Roca, Ecuavisa reported.
“It’s also important to carry out counterintelligence within the prisons in order to dismantle the gangs on the outside,” Daniel Adler, an Argentine consultant specializing in security and urban counterterrorism, told Diálogo. “And in parallel, to offer a strategy of social reinsertion, because if not, the probability that [a prisoner] will fall back into the world of simple or organized crime is quite high.”
