Internecine fighting between two rival factions of the Los Tiguerones drug gang left 22 people dead on Thursday in the Pacific port city of Guayaquil.
The bloodshed began at 1500 when a group of 20 gunmen broke into houses and opened fire on rivals in the district of Nueva Prosperina on the northern outskirts of Guayaquil.
It was the deadliest massacre in the country in recent memory.
Authorities blamed the killings on a turf war between two factions of Los Tiguerones: Los Fenix and Los Igualitos.
In response, the National Police of Ecuador (Spanish abbr: PNE) staged a series of safehouse raids Friday and Saturday in Nueva Prosperina, arresting more than 30 alleged gang members.
The massacre came just four days after President Daniel Noboa extended the country’s state of emergency for another month to address rising gang violence throughout the country.
Noboa had originally declared a 60-day state of emergency on 3 October in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Manabi, Los Rios, Santa Elena, El Oro and in the canton of Camilo Ponce Enriquez in the south-central province of Azuay.
The eastern province of Orellana and the Metropolitan District of Quito were also included in the state of emergency.
This is the second time he has extended the state of emergency.
In 2023, Ecuador led Latin America in homicides with 8,248, an almost 75 percent increase from the previous year. Though in 2024 the number dropped to just below 7,000, this January registered a total of 731 murders, the highest amount ever recorded in a single month.
The internecine gang warfare, fought over access to drug-export instrumentalities, as well as control of local trafficking and illegal mining, has led to a significant increase in homicides involving multiple victims.
Some gangs are made up mainly of Venezuelans affiliated with the Venezuelan transnational gang Tren de Aragua, while others have ties to Mexican cartels and Colombian crime organizations.
In January 2024, Noboa declared 22 gangs as terrorist groups, authorizing the military to begin targeting the gangs.
One of the country’s most powerful drug gangs is Los Choneros, based in Guayaquil.
Los Tiguerones, who broke off from Los Choneros, is based in the northwestern coastal city of Esmeraldas.
Los Lobos, another breakaway from Los Choneros, are believed to have ties to Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Spanish abbr: CJNG) and are active in 16 of the country’s 24 provinces.
In the city of Duran, located across the Guayas River from Guayaquil, the Los Chones Killers and their rivals the Latin Kings street gang routinely engage in bloody turf wars.
The country’s escalating gang violence is one of the issues at the forefront of the country’s upcoming runoff presidential election on 13 April.
Noboa, who leads the National Democratic Union (Spanish abbr: AND) big tent party, is being challenged by leftist Luisa Gonzalez of the Citizen Revolutionary Movement (Spanish abbr: RC) party. Gonzalez is a lawyer and protege of former president Rafael Correa, a leftist icon who avoided prosecution for bribery by obtaining asylum in Belgium, his wife’s native country.
She has heavily criticized what she views as Noboa’s failure to curb the country’s rising violent crime rates.
Noboa has responded by vowing to protect military and police personnel accused of using heavy-handed tactics against the gangs, which some critics have interpreted to mean he will issue presidential pardons for any human rights abuses.
In addition to homicides, recently released figures by the PNE highlight the rapidly growing problem of kidnapping for ransom.
Some 3,292 ransom kidnappings were recorded throughout Ecuador from January through December of last year.
The situation is especially grave in Guayaquil, where 1,118 kidnappings were reported from January to December of last year, accounting for almost a third of the country’s total. This represented a 25 percent increase from the number registered in the same period in 2023.
Kidnapping gangs often target business owners or family members, though urban victims typically are upper-middle-class Ecuadoran businessmen who fail to follow reasonable precautions.
Foreigners are taken on occasion.
Ransom demands have ranged from $50,000 to as high as $700,000.
The most affected provinces include Guayas (where Guayaquil is located), the northern provinces of Pichincha (where Quito is located) and Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas, the central province of Los Rios, the western province of Manabi and the southwestern province of El Oro.
Personnel should continue to take stringent precautions against crime.
The US State Department’s current threat level for Ecuador is Level 2—Exercise Increased Caution.
The advisory specifically advised against travel to El Oro, Los Rios, Sucumbios, Manabi, Santa Elena, Santo Domingo and Esmeraldas provinces. Americans also are advised to avoid travel to the canton of Duran in Guayas province and south of Portete de Tarqui Avenue in Guayaquil.
This service strongly concurs with the advisory.
It is worth noting that many corporate managers fit the upper-middle-class profile. They should be given defensive training, to include protective-driving training.
Reasonable precautions suffice for foreigners.
