About 15 days ago, this story happened in the El Empalma area: a truck of a transport company for imported products (in this case it was a vehicle rented by small entrepreneurs) was intercepted by several cars from which heavily armed men got out, and was attacked. In order to let the driver through the abandoned area, they ask him for money, which he must withdraw from his accounts. They immediately give you the code. Yes, as you read, a code with letters and numbers, so that you can pay for the salvage of your vehicle and the goods it was carrying.

The code is valid for a maximum of one week and further loses value as time passes. On the first day of the raid, for example, they can ask, depending on the tonnage of the vehicle, 6, 7 or even 15 thousand dollars, without a guarantee that it will be delivered in good condition, because the “janitors” can take the parts for you to sell. On the third or fourth day, that truck will be worth $1,500 because it will go to auction and be scrapped. If the owner doesn’t have money or can’t get it quickly, the “janitors” don’t have time either.

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For the goods, “carriers” can also ask for additional money because, if it is a product that is easily marketed, they will not hesitate to try to make money from its sale. It also cannot be ruled out that they intentionally damage the product.

Carriers or their companies can do the code procedure themselves. However, more than one, on the recommendation of those who have already been attacked, are looking for a kind of mediator. This intermediary is part of the “business” and charges the contact and the value of the vehicle determined by the code.

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Criminal part above. But what about the companies that contracted the transport and had to receive their goods? Those who contract the transportation service immediately demand that the carriers take over the total losses. Some of them do this and go into debt to pay their client. In that case, they can buy back what they lost, but they don’t get their working time back. If the person providing the transport service does not recognize the losses, the entrepreneur will have to take that loss and buy the product again and, of course, face a delay in the production and delivery of the goods to his customers.

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Transporters have also had to change their way of working: they avoid night trips at all costs, which delays the shipment of products, especially on the Guayaquil-Quito route, and affects their customers who are forced to redistribute their work until your raw material arrives.

There are also voices that have raised organizing convoys to try to reduce the level of risk, thinking of taking out insurance for the goods to amortize the losses, subjecting themselves to some sort of phantom toll to let them circulate without being attacked and, above all, that they do not want to speak for fear of retribution.

Faced with this, one is left to wonder which is undertaken to control insecurity in areas far from large urban centres. (OR)