– It is a nightmare. In several areas, criminal gangs are in control, says Jorge Núñez to news. He is one of Ecuador’s foremost experts on the cocaine trade. The country, which a few years ago was seen as one of the safest in South America, is now described as a war zone: Mass murders, beheadings and extreme violence have become part of everyday life. Two of the most brutal and powerful Mexican cartels have moved the drug war south, fighting to control cocaine trafficking, writes Vice. One of them is the Sinaloa cartel of which El Chapo was the leader, until he was arrested and extradited to the United States, where he is now serving a life sentence. The European mafia is also involved in the battle for the very lucrative trade. Narcotics police stand guard at a large cocaine seizure in a banana cargo in the port city of Guayaquil in April. Photo: AFP The cocaine seizures in Ecuador are so huge that the authorities have found new, non-traditional ways to get rid of the illegal substance, writes the Reuters news agency. Street value of one hundred billion In Norway, several record seizures of cocaine have been uncovered in recent months. In Debatten on news, 23-year-old “Martin” said that he takes cocaine at parties several times a week, and that cocaine has become “part of the Norwegian party culture”. The use of cocaine among young people between the ages of 16 and 30 has increased in the last two years, according to a survey by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI). The cocaine in the two record seizures in Oslo was probably loaded on board in the port city of Guayaquil in Ecuador, says Arvid Utby, head of the section for organized crime in the Oslo police district. Ecuador is now the world’s largest exporter of cocaine. The police guard a coca field in Colombia, before it is destroyed. Photo: AP Coca leaves, which are the raw material, are produced in the neighboring countries of Colombia and Peru. Ecuador is a major exporter of bananas, and it is a common smuggling method to hide cocaine among cargoes of fruit. Last year alone, the authorities in the country seized more than 200 tonnes of cocaine. That means close to a hundred billion kroner in street value. Necked corpse On the west coast of Ecuador lies the city of Guayaquil, which has been called the pearl of the Pacific. The port city is the largest shipping port for cocaine from Latin America to Europe and the USA, and has become the country’s murder capital. A Saturday in April was another bloody day in the city. Armed men came to a workshop and started firing. Afterwards, bodies lay in pools of blood on the pavement, according to the police. At least ten people were killed. At least ten people were killed when gunmen opened fire in the port city of Guayaquil. Photo: AFP In another port city, Esmeralda, two bodies were found hanging by their legs from a bridge last spring. Both were beheaded. Nearby was a note with a message. The police believe they were killed because they were quieter, writes Vice. The number of murders in the country increased by 180 percent from 2020 to 2021. Almost half occurred in the port city of Guayaquil, according to the organization Crisis Group. Marines check a boat in search of cocaine in the port of Guayaquil during a state of emergency in May. Photo: AFP The police believe that most of the murders occur in the fight between the criminal gangs. But politicians, journalists and public prosecutors have also been killed. – It is about a threat that has put the country’s security at risk, says Security Minister Wagner Bravo to the AFP news agency. – The elite involved in cocaine smuggling The pandemic hit Ecuador very hard, and that is part of the reason for the extreme spiral of violence, according to experts. Bodies were left in the streets of the big city of Guayaquil, because the authorities did not have the capacity to deal with all the dead. The social and economic consequences were enormous. A dead person is said to have been left for three days outside a hospital during the pandemic in 2020. Several corpses were left in the streets as a result of several thousand dying within a short time. Photo: STR Large quantities of cocaine were left in storage during the pandemic, partly due to increased production in neighboring Colombia. Ecuador is thus no longer just a transit country. Now it is also a storage country and has acquired more functions in the illegal trade, according to experts. This means that more people will make money from smuggling. – The financial elite are involved in drug trafficking. They weren’t before, says Jorge Núñez. He believes that the criminal organizations need networks in ports and with the authorities in order to carry out the smuggling to Europe in particular. Corruption in the country is widespread. Both the president’s brother-in-law and several top figures in politics and finance are being investigated for participation in the cocaine trade, a journalistic excavation project shows. – It is a nightmare. In several areas, the state no longer has control, says Jorge Núñez, who is an expert on the illegal drug trade in Ecuador. Photo: Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton / Dan Komoda The prisons are also a battleground for the drug war, with massacres, extreme violence and several hundred deaths in recent years, according to the AFP news agency. – The state contributes to increased violence, says Núñez, who has made documentaries about the prisons and their role in the drug trade. He believes that a prison reform where the police have been given responsibility for the prisons increases the spiral of violence by, among other things, agreements being made with inmates regarding information and privileges. Cocaine as building material Pictures show workers in yellow helmets and white protective suits shoveling packages of cocaine into a cement mixer at a secret waste site in Ecuador. A worker prepares a package of cocaine to be rendered harmless and turned into building material. Photo: AP The waste is then mixed with cement, sand and water, before it is used as building material, writes the Reuters news agency. Several hundred tonnes of confiscated cocaine are now destroyed in this way. Because the warehouses are full and the incinerators have no more capacity. Somewhere, a department store will be built on top of the cocaine cement. The location is secret for security reasons. Seized cocaine is mixed with, among other things, stone before it becomes new building material. Photo: AP The method means that the cocaine is encapsulated, so it does not leak out, according to the UN Office for Drugs and Crime. – Enough is enough Conservative President Guillermo Lasso has initiated several measures to end drug violence in Ecuador. A state of emergency has been introduced several times. And in April, the government declared that the activities of the criminal organizations must be seen as terrorism. – It is time to say that enough is enough for the criminals and their allies, said Defense Minister Luis Lara, according to the AFP news agency. But many are critical of the measures. For the authorities did not mention specific organisations, but spoke of “terrorist activity”. – I fear that this could be used to criminalize protesters and political opponents, and damage democracy, says Jorge Núñez. The country has had major protests in both 2019 and 2022 where sharp weapons were used against demonstrators. The opposition also accuses President Lasso of corruption. The president rejects the accusations and has dissolved the national assembly and called new elections to prevent attempts to impeach him.
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Here they use cocaine as a building material – news Urix – Utenriksnyheter og -documentaries
