In Ecuador, the use of industrial weapons that enter across the borders is growing to fuel the prison crisis and crime

Ecuador registers more than 2,000 homicides that occurred during 2021 with less than a month to go until the end of this year, a figure that already far exceeded the 1,372 violent deaths registered in 2020 and that almost doubles the 1,187 in 2019, before the pandemic .

These crimes have been possible thanks to the increasingly sophisticated firearms that enter a country like Ecuador in greater numbers, with permeable borders and a strategic geographic location on the international scene of drug trafficking.

Among the deceased are inmates and drug traffickers killed by “settling accounts,” according to the Police, but there are also victims of robberies and assaults.

The crisis in the National Social Rehabilitation System has led to an atypical increase in violence, says a report by the legislative commission of Sovereignty, Integration and Integral Security, since intentional homicides reached, until last September, the figure of 249, that correspond to 14% of violence nationwide.

The report was prepared in October, before the massacre of 65 inmates killed by other inmates at the Litoral Penitentiary in November, so that the intra-prison deaths total 335 so far, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Government.

The homicides are taking place with firearms that are not manufactured in the country. “The trend of using artisanal weapons is decreasing, while the use of industrial, high-tech weapons that are produced abroad and enter through the southern border, from Peru,”says the report on the prison crisis.

And the fact is that a large part of the illegal arsenal is aimed at gangs dedicated to drug trafficking and related crimes that fight among themselves for territory in and out of prisons.

The specialized site Insight Crime points out that in Latin America there is an average rate of 17.85 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Ecuador experienced a spike in killings. Data from the National Police confirm this reality and show that the rate of intentional homicides has increased, from 7.84 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020 to 10.62% until October 2021.

In the report ‘The territorial dispute of drug trafficking in Ecuador puts the country on the international route of arms trafficking’, which EL UNIVERSO published last September, it was reported that in the first session of the State Public Safety Council in the new government The Armed Forces were ordered to improve control of weapons and explosives, with an emphasis on the borders.

Until the middle of this year, the Armed Forces had destroyed 5,514 weapons, most of them seized in operations against common crime. And last November 17, 4,254 more were melted, that is, the destruction of seized weapons almost doubled.

“But more is circulating among the gangs,” says Colonel Mario Pazmiño, former Army Intelligence chief, and not because the military is not doing its job, but because the situation has exceeded the inaction of previous governments. “The weapons have not entered the country overnight, they were already here and more continue to arrive.”

Not all the destroyed weapons are those that have been seized, there are many that are still on record as evidence and in the process of expert opinion at the level of the judicial function and they cannot be eliminated until the cases in progress are resolved.

But the most recent findings of the Armed Forces show how permeable the borders are, due to many illegal steps, and that the high-tech weapons that are entered, mostly intend to be infiltrated in the prisons in the middle of the prison crisis in Ecuador.

On November 18, the Police found within a mine in the Ponce Enríquez canton (Azuay) a score of weapons, including rifles, submachine guns, shotguns and pistols, as well as some 6,000 sticks of dynamite, a shipment valued at $ 100,000. from Peru, which had entered through the province of El Oro.

Fausto Buenaño, commander of District 8 of the Police, which includes Guayaquil, Durán and Samborondón, where 27% of the murders committed in the country are concentrated, according to the parliamentary report, maintains that according to the investigations, the arsenal was directed criminal gangs operating in prisons.

“This weapon has an effective range of 1,200 meters,” declared the head of zone 8 of the Intervention and Rescue Group (GIR), Darío Realpe; in other words, it can hit a victim more than a kilometer away. “It has a scope of war.”

That is why some bullets fired by inmates inside the Penitentiary have fallen, to the disbelief of some, in businesses and surrounding urbanizations within the radius mentioned by Realpe.

The large seizures of drugs, such as the one on August 14 in Los Vergeles, in the north of Guayaquil, allow the Police to have an idea of ​​what drug traffickers have within their “security structures”, as described by the colonel. Pazmiño, to ensure that their shipments reach the collection centers and shipping points.

That day, in addition to the largest shipment that the Police have been able to seize so far (9.5 tons of cocaine), the agents also found, behind the facade of a water bottling factory, 10 rifles “with the power to destroy an armored vehicle.” , according to said the Minister of Government, Alexandra Vela.

Police officers who go to the removal of bodies in Guayaquil and Manta, the second city with violent deaths attributed to “settling accounts” among drug traffickers, presume that antisocials are using modified pistols due to the amount of bullets that pierce the bodies. an automatic repeater or “chip,” as it is known in the underworld, a banned device in Ecuador.

In operations they have found, in addition to weapons such as pistols, submachine guns and rifles, accessories such as silencers, laser sights and stabilizers to shoot discreetly and without errors.

With those accessories, a Glock pistol becomes a weapon of war, says an agent. If a “Mickey Mouse” is added to the “chip” and stabilizer – an additional magazine of two drums of 50 rounds each – the pistol becomes a submachine gun.

In Guayaquil and Durán, the epicenter of the wave of violence, 86% of the more than 600 murders have been committed with firearms, according to police records. And 82% is related to drug trafficking.

Income from Colombia

The Colombian-Ecuadorian border extends for 578 km, which are used for the commission of various crimes such as arms trafficking, military and police officers who guard these sectors coincide.

There are more than 100 unauthorized border crossings that connect small populations of Esmeraldas, Carchi and Sucumbíos with the departments of Nariño and Putumayo in Colombia.

Tracks, pikes, rivers, tarabitas have been used by transnational organizations after the closure of the international bridges of Rumichaca, San Miguel and Mataje, due to the COVID pandemic, becoming the ideal routes to mobilize military supplies between both countries.

In the Andes Infantry Brigade, based in Carchi, Imbabura and part of Sucumbíos, responsible for the 256 km reservation, they maintain that a tough battle is taking place against arms trafficking, that now they not only go to Colombia, but from there they enter to Ecuador.

The immobilization of 21 traumatic weapons at the Urbina border crossing, on October 24, exposed a type of contraband that is causing concern among the northern border control authorities. These were “blank” weapons, which were being used by criminals on the Ecuadorian coast to subdue their victims because of their great resemblance to combat weapons.

Alejandro Flores, chief of operations of the Carchi Police Subzone, explains that despite being considered non-lethal weapons, percussions at a distance of five meters can cause serious injuries, which is why they represent a danger.

Why a blank bullet could still kill you

Marcelo Andrade, military coordinator of the Carchi and Imbabura Arms Center, confirms that the seizure of non-lethal weapons has grown. “The border crossings, being permissible, are used to mobilize this type of weapons.”

According to the seizures, those blank firearms that come from Colombia are of Italian, Austrian and Turkish manufacture.

In Otavalo, on the other hand, the traffic of dynamite, detonating cord, primers or slow fuse, captivates indigenous people and drivers of vehicles that are used as “mules” to move these dangerous materials that are destined for Colombia, indicates Samer Pulles, commander of the Yaguachi Cavalry Brigade.

Traffic is now shared, since there is a factory in the country that supplies certain mining sectors, but material is also coming through the trails from Colombian territory.

But the work of the Armed Forces is frustrated by legal actions that they question, such as what happened in the province of Esmeraldas, on November 12, where a judge from the San Lorenzo Multicomponent Unit released seven men, five of them they were foreigners, who were apprehended with firearms and military supplies in an alleged rest base in the Mairongo sector, on the northern border.

In a joint operation between the Armed Forces and the National Police, 8 shotguns were seized; 2 carbines; 1 M4 rifle; 1 revolver; 188 ammunition caliber 5.56 mm; 10 HK rifle feeders; 8 lemon-type hand grenades; 3 Motorola radios; 3 Colombian military uniforms; various explosives and artisan weapons; But despite these evidences, the captured ones were not organized, and they regained their freedom.

For the heads of the police investigation units and for the military that carry out the operations, the judicial resolution annulled the actions against organized crime. And in the face of impunity, criminals feel untouchable.

Pablo Velasco, commander of Subzone 8, says that 42,293 police operations have been carried out in Esmeraldas province between January and the first week of November. And 506 firearms and 2,011 knives have been seized.

Rest bases of illegal armed groups have also been discovered in Sucumbíos. Coca crops, cocaine base paste processing laboratories, chemical precursors, explosives and weapons are the main findings and seizures that the Armed Forces have made in the border area of ​​this province, neighboring Colombia.

“This year four clandestine training and rest areas for illegal groups have been dismantled. In September we found a megacrystallizer that processed five tons of drugs per week, and another three that were relatively small, that processed one ton per week, ”says Colonel Milton Rodríguez, commander of the 19 Napo Jungle Brigade.

These crystallizers were discovered in Ecuadorian territory only about 300 meters from the border line.

In this province, the transport of white gasoline has increased and therefore the punctures to the Petroecuador hydrocarbon pipeline.

“We have combat vessels that we are monitoring both the San Miguel and Putumayo rivers, we have them under control,” says Rodríguez.

Brigadier General Franklin Pico, commander of the Fourth Division of the Amazon Army, made a tour of the military units stationed in the provinces of Orellana and Sucumbíos two weeks ago.

“All the personnel at the border are employed, we have five thousand men patrolling, carrying out arms, ammunition and explosives control operations,” says Pico.

In Sucumbíos, some 20 long-range rifles and 10,000 ammunition have been seized. “This year’s seizures are greater than those of the previous year, these illegal groups have been activated, but we are not going to allow them to operate here,” emphasizes General Pico. (I)