Criminal gangs, dedicated to drug trafficking, manage their own weapons arsenals inside and outside the prisons. As of May 2021, the Armed Forces have seized 5,514 weapons of various caliber.
Between January and August 2020, 459 murders with firearms were committed in the country, and this figure remained within the average of recent years. In 2019, for example, there were 413 cases and in 2018, a total of 301.
But in 2021, the situation worsened notably and in the first eight months of the year 1,007 murders with firearms were registered. That represents an increase of 119%, compared to the previous year.
It is also about the highest figure of homicides committed with firearms of the last decade, according to official statistics.
On the other hand, figures from the Ministry of Government also show that between January and August of this year there was a total of 1,427 violent deaths, and 71% were with a firearm.
Arms and drug trafficking
The increase in the use of firearms and violent deaths in Ecuador have a guiding line: drug trafficking.
In fact, international studies no longer put Ecuador only as a country of passage of drugs, but has become a collection center. Even more and more cocaine refining laboratories that are dismantled in the national territory.
Precisely the control of these drug routes by drug traffickers has provoked wars by criminal gangs, both inside and outside the prisons. And this is evidenced in the increase in violent deaths, especially of the hitman type.
For this reason, organized crime groups look for firearms in the illegal market to supply their arsenal and gain space in the war.
In this market, police investigations have identified two types of weapon: those of artisan manufacture and others of high technology.
While in the recent riots in Ecuadorian prisons both types of weapons have been used.
In June 2021, for example, in the Litoral Penitentiary a factory of artisanal weapons was dismantled, and among the artifacts that were made were single-load pistols.
But, in the videos filmed during the riots, it is observed that the prisoners have submachine guns, rifles and even long-range weapons that they use from the roofs of the prisons as a kind of sniper.
According to the latest official report of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces (Comaco), until May 2021, in the country 5,514 weapons were seized and destroyed of various caliber that were seized for not having the statutory carrying and possession permits.
They come from the south
The proliferation of drug trafficking in Ecuador has put the country on the map of other related crimes, and one of these is illegal arms trafficking.
A police intelligence source indicates to PRIMICIAS that artisanal weapons are used in minor and common crimes such as urban robberies. But drug trafficking groups use more sophisticated weapons.
The arms of the illegal market in the country come from southern Latin America, specifically Chile and Peru, but the route would start in another country.
In 2018, the Chilean journalistic investigation center Cyprus revealed that Guns or parts of rifles leave from Texas (United States), camouflaged in other merchandise. Then these weapons arrive at the Chilean ports, and from there they are transported by land to Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.
One of the most recent seizures was on September 28, 2021, in the El Guabo canton, near the border with Peru. On that date, the Armed Forces seized an arsenal of illegal weapons and ammunition, such as three submachine guns and eight revolvers.
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