Ecuador was once spared the worst of the narco-warfare and insurgencies that have plagued Latin America. No longer. The storming last week of a TV station in Guayaquil by gun-brandishing thugs showed how no one, and nowhere, is safe from the narco gangs who rule the streets.

The latest chaos was unleashed after a major crime lord escaped from prison. José Adolfo ‘Fito’ Macías Villamar had been taunting authorities for months, even starring in a music video while ostensibly confined under heavy security. Now, he is on the loose.

In recent years, the murder rate has risen by 500 per cent as the once mostly-peaceful land has become a battleground for warring drug gangs. President Daniel Noboa has declared a 60-day state of emergency a la El Salvador, which successfully subdued the bloodthirsty bandidos who once terrorised its citizens. But, so far, it hasn’t gone well: hundreds of prison guards were taken hostage in riots, and policemen snatched from the streets. ‘You declared war, you’ll get war’, the captive cops declared on-camera, pistols drawn to their heads.

The murder rate has risen by 500 per cent

Ecuador is strategically positioned next to Colombia and Peru, the world’s most prolific producers of coca plants and cocaine. In Colombia, the peace treaty with and subsequent disbanding of the Farc rebels in 2016 left a cartel-shaped hole in the drug trade that was swiftly filled by Mexican narco-traffickers. These gangs invested in coca farms and subcontracted Ecuadorian gangs for overseas shipping. By 2019, as much as a third of Colombia’s marching powder was leaving through the Pacific port of Guayaquil. Some of this cocaine, bound for Australia, Europe and North America, was hidden among cargos of Ecuador’s most prized export, bananas.

So if you used cocaine this week, there’s a good chance it came through Ecuador. This expanding economic sector has brought with it fierce competition over the ports, a struggle that intensified when the boss of Los Choneros, Ecuador’s largest drug gang, was gunned down in a shopping mall in December 2020, fracturing his outfit into feuding factions.