On 9 January 2024, an armed conflict broke out in Ecuador involving the country's government against several organized crime groups, most notably the Los Choneros cartel.
Reports of armed attacks throughout Guayaquil and other parts of the country were widespread, occurring primarily in prisons, markets, roads, and universities. The large-scale attacks were a combination of responses to the escape of Los Choneros leader José Adolfo Macías Villamar in Guayaquil, and President Daniel Noboa declaring a state of emergency and then an internal state of war.
Background
The homicide rate in Ecuador rose from 5 to 46 per 100,000 inhabitants between 2017 and 2023. According to political analyst Fernando Carrion, from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, the turning point came when Lenín Moreno came into office in 2017. The new president embarked on a policy of austerity and the security apparatus was weakened by merging several ministries into a single one with a reduced budget. Expenditure on prison security was slashed by a third between 2017 and 2021, despite an increase in the prison population.
The deterioration in social indicators has also made it easier for gangs to recruit. While the poverty rate had fallen from 35% to 21% between 2007 and 2017, the combined effects of a reduction in public spending under the presidencies of Moreno and Guillermo Lasso and the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed it back up to 27% in 2023. Unemployment and the lack of study grants mean that a third of young people aged between 15 and 25, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds, are neither studying nor working, making them vulnerable to recruitment by criminal groups.
Geographically, Ecuador is located between Colombia and Peru, the two main cocaine producing countries in the world. It also possesses the port of Guayaquil, an important gateway that suffers from poor oversight by Ecuadorian authorities. Until 2016, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) controlled cocaine trafficking operations between Colombia and Ecuador. Following a peace agreement between FARC and the Colombian government that year which led to the former withdrawing from main cocaine producing areas, some dissident FARC members founded their own drug gangs. Due to better control of the Colombian government over transportation hubs, drug trafficking from Colombia decreased and its operations moved to Ecuador.
According to Vox, the lower demand for cocaine in the United States alongside the Colombian peace process created a power vacuum that saw Albanian, Mexican and Venezuelan criminal groups attempt to control drug trafficking routes out of Ecuador. Former interior minister and head of the National Police of Peru, Eduardo Pérez Rocha, said after the conflict began that the increased violence in Ecuador was due to the presence of the international Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, resulting with a higher intensity of criminal activity. Since 2018, Ecuador has faced a historic wave of violence as the country has become a critical cocaine transit point, and organized crime groups compete for control of drug routes and prisons. Hundreds of prison inmates have been killed in prison fights.
In 2019 massive riots broke out in response to austerity measures. On 10 October, the capital Quito was overrun by the protesters forcing president Moreno to relocate the government to Guayaquil. Returning the fuel subsidies ended these clashes.
On 2 November 2022 President Guillermo Lasso declared a state of emergency in the provinces of Guayas and Esmeraldas for the next 45 days following the killings of five police officers and the abduction of several prison guards by organized crime members.
Escape of gang leaders
On 7 January 2024, Los Choneros leader José Adolfo Macías Villamar escaped from prison in Guayaquil on the day of his scheduled transfer to a maximum-security prison. The events were reported the next day by authorities, with charges being filed against two corrections officers. On 9 January, Fabricio Colón Pico, the leader of another criminal group, Los Lobos, also escaped from prison in Riobamba four days after he had been arrested for plotting to kill Attorney-General Diana Salazar Méndez.
Following the escape, President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency to last for 60 days, granting authorities the power to suspend people's rights and allowing the military to be mobilized inside prisons. A nightly curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. was imposed during the 60 days. Riots ensued in multiple prisons across Ecuador. A series of attacks took place, including attacks with explosives on businesses and private vehicles and an explosion near the house of the president of the National Court of Justice. On the night of 8 January, four police officers were kidnapped in Quito and Quevedo.
According to The Washington Post, intelligence analysts said that the attacks may have been triggered at least in part by a recent investigation into links between drug traffickers, criminal gangs, and political operators. The operation, known as Metastasis, led to the arrests of at least 20 top security officials and judges in December 2023 for alleged criminal activity benefiting a drug trafficker.
Conflict
2024
January
On 9 January 2024, organized crime groups in Ecuador issued threats of "war", prompting the country's president to declare a state of armed internal conflict and authorize military operations against these groups. On the same day, Los Choneros gunmen forcibly entered a TC Televisión studio in Guayaquil, where they took journalists hostage during a live newscast. Later in the day, the Ecuadorian police raided the TV studio, released the journalists, and arrested the gang members. One journalist was injured after being shot in the leg while another station employee suffered a broken arm. Some of the attackers were reported to be minors.
In Quito at 3 p.m., officials of the Palacio de Carondelet in the historic center and other state institutions were evacuated for safety. Many businesses closed their commercial activities for the day. An explosive device was later found and deactivated in the vicinity of the Obelisco de la Vicentina. It was also reported that the vehicle restriction system called pico y placa was suspended until further notice.
Several hospitals in Guayaquil were targets of violent acts, including Teodoro Maldonado, Luis Vernaza, Guayaquil, El Niño and Los Ceibos. The assaults on the hospitals ranged from robberies of medical personnel to shooting at medical facilities. During an attack near Ceibos Hospital, the singer Diego Gallardo (also known as "Aire del Golfo") and a high school student were shot and wounded. Both were treated at the same hospital, where Gallardo died from his injuries.
Concurrently, another group took police officers hostage, coercing them to read a message characterizing the events as a reaction to Noboa's declared state of emergency. Additionally, a kidnapping incident unfolded at the University of Guayaquil campus, where students barricaded themselves inside classrooms.
Several attacks on civilians were reported. At the Centro Comercial Albán Borja in Guayaquil, two civilians were shot and killed. Two police officers were killed in an attack in Nobol. Videos began circulating online showing prison guards being executed, while others requested a dialogue with Noboa, threatening to continue killing more guards. One gang announcement threatened to kill anyone out in the streets after 11 p.m. Two vehicles and a gas station were set on fire in Esmeraldas. Explosions were also reported across the country, particularly in Guayaquil, Cuenca, Machala, and Loja, as well as in Esmeraldas and Los Rios Provinces.
Banks, markets, and shops were closed throughout the country in cities such as Quito and Guayaquil to protect merchants and customers from armed attacks.
On 10 January, a special KLM flight was made to Ecuador to get seven Dutch nationals out of the country following an emergency call on X (Twitter) by Dutch television personality Rob Kamphues.
On 11 January, two people were killed and nine others were injured in an arson attack on a nightclub in Coca which also destroyed 11 stores.
On 13 January, the government announced that all 178 prison guards and other employees held hostage in prisons across the country since that start of the unrest by the gangs had been freed.
On 17 January, public prosecutor César Suárez, who was leading the investigation into the attack on the TV station, was shot and killed in a daylight attack in Guayaquil. The gunmen are believed to be members of Los Chone Killers, a splinter group of Los Choneros.
On 18 January, security forces stormed Guayaquil's central prison as part of a major operation. Later that day, the army claimed on X (Twitter) that they were "in control of the external and internal perimeter of the penitentiary complex" and shared photos from within the prison.
On 21 January, police thwarted an attempt by gangs to seize a hospital in Yaguachi, resulting in 68 arrests. It is believed that the failed attack was meant to "rescue a colleague" who had been admitted earlier that day. A rehabilitation center found to contain local gang headquarters was also raided.
February
On 7 February, soon after leaving a city council meeting, councillor Diana Carnero was shot in Naranjal while filming a video regarding the city's poor road conditions. She died at a local hospital.
On 23 February, three prisoners escaped from a prison in Latacunga that were recently captured by security forces from members of Los Lobos.
March
On 8 March, President Noboa extended the state of emergency by thirty days. The murder rate had halved from 24 killings a day to twelve and over 11,700 people had been arrested since the beginning of the conflict.
On 16 March, El País reported that the government was creating genetic profiles of inmates to both make it easier to identify deaths in cases of prison riots and in case of identity theft.
On 24 March, Brigitte García, the mayor of San Vicente, was found dead with gunshot wounds in her car in Manabí Province, along with her staffer Jairo Loor. The killer has not been captured.
On 28 March, three inmates were killed and six others were injured following a prison riot at the Regional 8 penitentiary in Guayaquil.
On 29 March, eleven people were abducted in Manabí Province. Five of them were later found killed execution-style while the remaining six, including five children, were released. Two suspects were released the next day. Police said the victims may have been tourists caught up in a drug dispute.
On 31 March, nine people were killed and ten others were injured after gunmen opened fire on a group of people practicing sports on a street in Guasmo, a neighborhood in Guayaquil.
April
On 17 April, Jose Sanchez, the mayor of Camilo Ponce Enríquez, Azuay Province, was shot dead, followed on 19 April by Jorge Maldonado, the mayor of Portovelo, El Oro Province.
On 22 April, a dismembered body inside a bag was found near the residence of Diana Salazar in Quito, it was later reported that the victim was identified as a 19-year old Venezuelan and that the killing might have been a "message" directed to Salazar.
May
On 11 May, eight people were killed in a gun attack on a bar hosting a birthday party in Chanduy, Santa Elena Province.
June
On 2 June, Cristhian Nieto, alternate assemblyman for Mónica Salazar, alongside his wife Nicole Burgos and a bystander Steven Mendoza were killed inside a circus in Manta, Manabí Province.
September
On 3 September director of Lago Agrio prison Alex Guevara was killed by gunshot in a targeted assassination. On 12 September, María Daniela Icaza, director of Litoral Penitentiary, was killed in a targeted shooting.
October
On 23 October, Ecuadorian police said that two men involved in the TV attack in Guayaquil on 9 January had been arrested in Spain. This included William Alcívar Bautista, the leader of the Tiguerones.
November
On 28 November, a 17-year-old girl was abducted by four local gang members near her home in Cota Mil, she was then robbed, forced out of the car and shot several times, her body was discovered the following morning.
December
On 1 December, ten men in a rental home, in the town of El Guabo, were gunned down by members of the Sao-Box cartel.
On 5 December, the prison director of El Oro No. 1 Deprivation of Liberty Center and one other person were attacked by armed men while driving in a vehicle. The prognosis of both victims is guarded.