How have Ecuador's organised criminal groups become so influential?

Ecuadorian police arrested 13 armed men on January 9 for invading a media channel amid a live broadcast. At the time of incursion, numerous violent incidents played out in the country's second city, Guayaquil, often regarded as a "strategic location" for drug trafficking.

The violent incident shocked much of the world and has led to questions regarding the state of security in the Latin American nation, which is home to 17 million people.

Political observer and Editor-in-Chief of America's Quarterly Brian Winter described the events in Ecuador as "terrible" and drew wider and historical comparisons to violence in the region.

"These images of masked gunmen taking over a TV station, invading university - President Noboa today declaring state of "internal conflict" - not sure we've seen anything quite like it in LatAm for many years. Yes, cartels & gangs effectively control areas of Mexico, Brazil and other countries but in Ecuador we're seeing direct assaults on centralised areas of power. Maybe not since the days of Pablo Escobar? Still developing," he wrote on X.

Last year, Ecuador was also left in turmoil after the brazen slaying of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio - a staunch critic of corruption and drug crime in the country- some two weeks before elections in the Latin American country.

In recent years, observers say insecurity has plummeted, as Ecuador has pivoted from one of Latin America's least violent nations to having the continent's four-highest homicide rate - placing it above Mexico.

Political analyst Will Freeman wrote on X that Ecuador is "on the brink of becoming a narco-state."

Observers point to the impact of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, signing a 2016 peace deal with the government of Colombia as paving the conditions for the increased social violence.

The group previously held a tight grip over the drug trafficking routes - from Colombia to Ecuador's port area located on the Pacific coast.

In the aftermath, rival gangs in Ecuador began competing for turf.

In the power vacuum, prominent Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generacion and the Albanian mafia are said to have forged regional ties

Consequently since 2016, Ecuador's homicide rate has shot up by almost 500% - with an estimated 22 murders per 100,000 people in 2022. Incidents include numerous prison murders amid fighting between rival criminal groups in a bid to cement their stranglehold on the drug trade.

In the capital, Quito locals reportedly close their businesses early while security forces have rolled back on patrols amid extortion rackets which hold a strong chokehold across the country.

"Spend a few days in any major Ecuadorian city, and it won't take long to understand why. In the port cities of Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, where the violence is most intense, massacres, targeted assassinations of police and public officials, and car bombs have become weekly occurrences." wrote Freeman in the Council of Foreign Relations last year.

International observers cite Ecuador’s developed road network, a volatile political landscape, a dollarised economy and relaxed visa entry requirements for foreign nations alongside the economic downturn from COVID-19 and unemployment as some of the dynamics fuelling organised criminal groups in the country.

According to Nelly Luna Amancio, director of the publication, Ojo Publico, the social violence experienced in recent years has been in the making for some time.

"Ecuador did not reach this point overnight. It is the result of years of impunity, of strengthening relationships between local mafias and global criminal organisations and corruption. These factors—which allowed the rise of these mafias—also occur in Peru," she wrote on X.

In Ecuador, Guayaquil is considered the country's most dangerous city. In the first half of 2023, it recorded 1,390 violent deaths, close to all the violent deaths in the previous year.

Political scientist and jurist Daniel Zovatto wrote on X that Ecuador's security crisis is "extremely serious."

He suggests there is no similar regional precedent to what he sees as the "brutal challenge" posed to the State's legitimate authority "in such a high number of important cities, including the Capital".

Aside from Pablo Escobar's so-called "war" in Colombia during the 1990s, Zovatto says Mexican cartels, Peru's Shining Path, and criminal groups from El Salvador, Honduras and Brazil, in his "opinion" are not as threatening as the criminal groups Ecuador faces today.

On Tuesday, armed assailants who took over forced staff to the ground and fired shots as screams could be heard. Some 15 minutes later, the transmission was reportedly cut while nobody was killed. Authorities confirmed that all 13 gang members who have been detained would be charged with terrorism. In Ecuador, such a crime results in a 13-year jail term.

After Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, issued another decree. It labelled around 20 groups involved in drug trafficking as terrorist organisations, allowing Ecuador's military to target them in line with international humanitarian law.

Numerous violent incidents took place across the Latin American nation on the same day. Lecturers and students at the University of Guayaquil hid in classrooms after a criminal group took over at the institution. It led to Ecuador's Ministry of Education suspending in-person classes and switching to non-face-to-face teaching amid the heightened insecurity.

There were additional reports of numerous armed people at hospitals in Guayaquil. It follows Noboa's declaration of a state of emergency for 60 days across Ecuador amid widespread insecurity.

Noboa's move came after a prominent mob boss was reported to be missing from prison on Monday, leading to numerous riots across at least six prisons in Ecuador.