Inside Ecuador’s struggle to bring down the cartels
Ecuador is by no means the first Latin American country to try to take on the cartels and gangs that have embedded themselves into the societies of many countries across the region.
But Ecuador, arguably more than others, faces a real challenge because of the involvement on its soil of two of Mexico’s most notorious and powerful drugs cartels – Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation.
The authorities in Ecuador tell us that the Sinaloa cartel has broadly aligned itself with the Los Choneros gang, while Jalisco New Generation has aligned itself with Los Tiguerones.
The 36-year-old president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, ordered a crackdown on these two gangs after Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macias, the leader of Los Choneros, escaped from jail before his planned move to a high security prison.
The crackdown led to a gang fight back, with murders, car bombings and insurrection launched across the country in January.
A soldier on patrol in Esmeraldas, Ecuador
The fight back was particularly focused on the port cities and towns of the Pacific Coast, like Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, which are major areas of influence for the gangs.
President Noboa recategorised gang crime and membership as terrorism, immediately allowing the security forces to exercise much more rigorous powers to detect, confront, and incarcerate gang members.
The country’s security forces have been conducting raid after raid, rounding up people they believe are linked to the gangs.
Prisons filling up
The country’s prisons have been filling up with new inmates, and some prisons, notorious for their lack of discipline and control have been taken over by the military, completely changing the dynamic inside and the freedom of the gang leaders to continue their business activities while locked up.
The president of El Salvador, another country infested with narco crime gangs, has overseen quite an overwhelming clampdown against criminal activity, and as it stands, roughly two percent of the country’s entire population is behind bars.
Inmates in prison
The net effect has seen murder rates and general crime rates plummet, according to the government’s latest figures.
‘The world’s coolest dictator’ is how President Nayib Bukele described himself. And his popularity in El Salvador has rocketed.
Ecuador’s president appears to be following a very similar plan but is keen to distance himself from the dictatorship sobriquet.
The Phoenix Plan
Soldiers in a pick up truck patrol Guayaquil
The ‘Phoenix Plan’ to beat the gangs in Ecuador has a budget of $800 million (US) for law enforcement -$ 200 million of that comes from the government of the United States.
The United States has a vested interest in seeing gang activities in Latin America curtailed.
First to restrict the flow of illegal drugs into the country and secondly, and arguably even more importantly, to stop the flow of migrants north from South and Central America and illegally into the United States.
The huge number of migrants trying to cross the border from Mexico often tell us they are attempting the journey to escape the gangs who make life in a swathe of countries absolutely miserable.
For two weeks Sky News joined raid after raid, night and day, on land and sea, against the gangs in Ecuador. We also entered a prison, which was full, and under military guard.
So far so good.
Mexican cartels moving in
But, and it is a big but, the Mexican cartels are in town and that is a major problem. I’ve spent a lot of time with gangs and cartels in Mexico and across south and central America, some, like in Brazil, are wealthy, well-organised, ruthless, and crucially, are well-armed.
An Ecuadorian marine armed with a gun supporting the coastguard
When Brazil’s police and army go after the gangs, they conduct raids using helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles. And while the authorities have claimed major successes in recent years, my most recent visit showed me that gangs are still acting with impunity – it’s an ongoing thing.
In El Salvador, the gangs were substantial but not well organised, and in neighbouring Honduras it was very much the same picture.
However, in Mexico it’s a whole different ball game. The cartels are fundamentally part of the fabric of society, and the resources are, to all intents and purposes, limitless.
Their brutality is legendary, and their ability to buy off police, judges, whole companies, and even the government, cannot be underestimated.
Soldiers preparing to take part in a raid
Successive Mexican governments have long since given up on the police in their efforts to quell cartel activity and depend entirely on the country’s marines to carry out law enforcement.
Read more
On the front line of Ecuador’s war against the drug cartels
How a ‘no-go’ city turned into a tourist hotspot in 26 days
The point is, Mexico’s government is not winning, and if I’m honest, I don’t think they ever will as things currently stand with drug use across the world.
Now to Ecuador’s problem again. The Sinaloa and New Generation cartels realised that Ecuador – which is not a cocaine producing country – had excellent ports with speedy routes north by sea to Central and North America.
The country has a huge banana production business which exports via sea, and it’s a major oil refining country, which exports by sea. These ships are perfect for hiding and exporting drugs, particularly cocaine, as well.
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Ecuador’s cartel crackdown
Neither of the cartels will appreciate President Noboa’s disruption to their business, and my suspicion is that they won’t just walk away.
They’re used to getting their own way, and so used to problems going away – or simply killing an opponent, that they may do the same in Ecuador.
To succeed the president and his government need to keep gang members under control and in prison, they need to stop the cartels sending their operatives into the country to reboot the business, they must ensure that state institutions aren’t corrupt and bought off, and finally, the president needs to stay alive.
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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