These are the ten crimes that register the most arrests in Ecuador in 2021

The massacres inside prisons and the robberies that have been recorded by video security cameras have marked the daily news of the media and social networks in long episodes of 2021.

Unlike 2020, the year in which the COVID-19 pandemic began, thefts this year have increased, for example. From January to October last, 20,000 robberies were registered nationwide, about 4,000 robberies more than in the same period of the previous year.

These types of crimes continue to occur in commercial or non-commercial places at any time, such as the assault that a person was the victim of in a Kennedy car park, in the north of Guayaquil, last Monday, December 20.

According to the images of a security video, the offender enters the establishment with a revolver-type weapon and aims at several people. Then he focuses on removing the chain from one of them. He immediately runs towards the main street, where his accomplice awaits him on a motorcycle. The thugs did not expect that they would be arrested minutes later by police agents who attended the emergency.

These types of events are among the crimes that record the most arrests in the country, from January to November of this year.

At the top of the list are traffic, production and financing activities for the production of controlled substances. From last January to November, 11,933 people were arrested for any of these crimes, out of a total universe of 84,000 apprehended. A figure similar to that of 2020 (11,692) and higher than that of 2019 (9,853).

Renato Rivera, researcher at the Latin American Network for Security Analysis and Organized Crime, considers that the State is not using the appropriate strategies to combat organized crime, made up, for example, by organizations dedicated to drug trafficking at all levels.

“I think the efforts made by the Police are important. Now, there is a problem in the Police, although there is a report of strengthening its preventive and intelligence axis, in practice this does not happen. Every time there is a prison crisis or a series of homicides, which have a public uproar, they do have a common component which is the lack of criminal intelligence response from the Police. There is no reinforcement on the capacity of the Police Intelligence analysts, ”says Rivera.

The investigator also believes that the state intelligence service could play a more active role in actions to combat organized crime.

Police General Fausto Salinas Samaniego, general director of Citizen Security and Public Order, maintains that this work axis operates normally in the institution, although, he assures, they need a legal instrument to better articulate collaboration between the departments intelligence of security entities.

“A law to be able to follow up on criminal and transnational threats. It is always necessary to further strengthen operations. For example, there is a lot of technology that must be promoted in the exchange of databases, the traceability of people who enter the country without documents, to know where they are or if they have any antecedents. There are many things that have to be promoted, ”Salinas lists.

The uniformed man also considers that certain sections of the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code (COIP) should be reformed to combat organized crime that has shown its capacity for power in the streets and prisons of the country.

“Meanwhile, in other countries an assault or death with a weapon of war can be punishable by life imprisonment,” says the officer.

Domestic violence

In second place in the list of crimes with the most arrests are the different forms of violence against women or any member of the family nucleus, also considered to have social connotations. For these acts of physical, psychological and sexual violence, 11,767 people were detained from January to November. As a related statistic, some 60 people were apprehended in investigations for femicides, in that same period. According to organizations that promote women’s rights, from January to November 15 of this year, “172 women and girls died violently for gender reasons in the country.”

This is an issue that the current government tries to address. On November 25, President Guillermo Lasso announced an increase in the budget to eradicate violence against women, from $ 1.5 million to $ 24 million; and the implementation of the National System to Prevent and Eradicate Violence against Women.

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Foundations such as the Ecuadorian Center for the Promotion and Action of Women (Cepam) have closely followed the problem to demand that the State apply policies that reduce episodes of violence in homes, the correct care of victims and investigative treatment – attached to the law- of the cases of deaths of women.

On December 19, Cepam asked the Prosecutor’s Office to “apply due process in the case of Naomi Michelle Arcentales Sabando, 25, who is presumed to have been a victim of femicide on December 12, 2021 in the city of Manta, province of Manabi ”. Naomi was the partner of a prosecutor from that province.

Thefts cause anxiety

Theft, in its different modalities and objectives, has been another big problem that citizens have had to live with this year. Several assaults have even caused the death of business clients, as happened with a minor in an ice cream parlor in Guayaquil, in October, and that is why families stopped walking or going out at night.

From January to last August, the Prosecutor’s Office registered 48,000 complaints for theft nationwide, 12,000 more than in the same period of the previous year.

Guayaquil has been one of the hardest hit cities.

“After achieving a little economic reactivation, other types of activities have been reactivated. We have also had the involvement of people of other nationalities, including the Colombian and Venezuelan. That they have mixed (with Ecuadorian criminals) or have formed their own criminal organizations, to operate with different modalities, modes of operation that they have brought, ”says Police Major Álex Castillo, head of the Sub-Directorate of Investigation of Crimes against the Right to Property, Zone 8 (Sidprobac Zone 8).

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Among these modes of operation is the use of explosives to open ATMs and access money. The Police investigate several cases registered in different provinces.

Officer Castillo highlights that after identifying the way the gangs act, strategies are developed to track down their members, collect evidence and capture them with the help of the Prosecutor’s Office.

“We are working with certain strategies to combat both the supply and the demand for stolen items. As Sidprobac we have carried out operations in the same places identified where these objects have been commercialized. Reception, as it is a misdemeanor, is not judged with the same forcefulness as to say that they will spend years in jail. Then they leave it and return to the same activity ”, says the uniformed man.

Crimes related to controlled substances, violence against women, and robberies account for 39% of the 84,000 arrests, according to data from the Ministry of Government, from last January to November.

Other crimes

The rest of the types of offenses that complete the list of the 10 crimes that register the most arrests, on the other hand, add up to 20%: driving while intoxicated, 5,287 arrests; possession and bearing of weapons, 3,221; injuries, 2,534; theft, 2,140; reception (collection of objects from crimes), 1,639; rape, 957; and, sexual abuse, 834.

Unlike this list, there are institutions, such as the Prosecutor’s Office and the Police, which include other crimes due to their incidence and social connotation. For example, the Police handle the figure of 2,345 intentional homicides and 17,903 scams, from January 1 to December 17 last.

Citizens hope that these levels of violence and citizen insecurity will drop in order to carry out their activities without fear of leaving home. (I)