Pirates and extortionists “choke” Ecuador’s shrimp industry

He shrimp (shrimp)of which Ecuador is the largest exporter in the world, with 1,060 million tons sold in 2022, it is today one of thes ‘crown jewels’ for criminal gangs that operate mainly in the Gulf of Guayaquil, where they extort both artisanal fishermen and large companies in the sector.

According to a report sent to EFE by the National Chamber of Aquaculture (CNA), at the end of 2023 there were “an annual expenditure of 80 million dollars on security,” after the union suffered “77 criminal incidents” with a balance of four dead and 58 injured.

The concern is great, taking into account that 4,000 shrimp companies operate in the country, which stopped receiving close to US$ 1.5 billion last year due to external factors, such as the fall in international and internal prices, and the increase in the costs of production and crime.

Therefore, for the CNA “It is imperative that the Ecuadorian Government focus its efforts on combating crime” with the aim of guaranteeing the stability of the 290,000 direct and indirect jobs generated by this sector of the economy.

The actions that the Government “determines to confront organized crime must be supported by all of us who want peace for Ecuador. “This is not the time for lukewarm positions like those in the past, which aggravated the dangerous situation in which we find ourselves today,” said the executive president of the CNA, José Antonio Camposano.

Alarm in the Gulf of Guayaquil

The imposing Gulf of Guayaquil, considered the largest inlet of water in the Pacific Ocean in South America, with an area of ​​13,701 square kilometers, is currently under alert.

There, the thefts of weapons, vests and radios by gangs that illegally enter the shrimp camps are constant.

Also, starting in 2018, pirates began to steal boats, taking advantage of the fact that in the Gulf there are eight islands and dozens of islets, as well as interior channels with branches where criminals, who travel in speed boats, hide.

“If a barge had six vehicles, transporting 60,000 pounds of product on average, the pirates would arrive and steal between 10,000 and 15,000 pounds approximately in 25 minutes”a worker from one of the main companies in the sector in Guayaquil tells EFE, who asked to keep his name confidential.

In December 2018, a shrimper was murdered when he tried to prevent the theft of the boat in which he was transporting 4,000 pounds of product.

That year alone there were eight deaths, 23 injuries and 47 assaults that marked the beginning of this “tsunami” of violence.

Victims of “vaccines”

However, the modus operandi changed, because “These thefts meant that the criminals had to have extensive logistics to collect and transport the shrimp, and assume the risk of leaving the sea and reaching the continent,” explains a union worker.

For this reason, criminal gangs, considered since last January 9 as “terrorists” by the Government of the Ecuadorian president, Daniel Noboa, chose to extort with the demand for quotas, which in Ecuador are popularly known by the name of “vaccines”.

Even artisanal fishermen are being victims of this crime, who collect wild shrimp in small canoes and from whom the gangs demand, depending on the number of personnel they employ, between one and five dollars a week to let them work.

Also, the crime that shakes Ecuador, carried out mainly by gangs’The Tiguerones’ and ‘Los Lobos’, now has the senior managers of the Guayaquil shrimp farms in its sights.

In 2023, businessman Fernando Scippa Dapelo was kidnapped and others had to leave the country, so the industry is making efforts to ensure that the boom in “pink gold”, as the shrimp is known, do not shipwreck because of the violent.

In 2022 alone, shrimp exports reached US$ 7,289.3 million, a 6.25% of Ecuador’s gross domestic product (GDP), while between January and October 2023 sales abroad were US$6,273.8 million, the vast majority destined for China.