Recent cases have once again highlighted the criminal infiltration of Ecuador’s police and military personnel, adding to what is a long history of close ties between criminal groups, the drug business, and the country’s security forces.
On May 20, a sub-lieutenant in the Ecuadorian army was arrested for leaking information about an operation against an arms trafficking network that resulted in zero arrests. Just two days earlier, on May 18, two active-duty police officers were arrested in Guayaquil for allegedly kidnapping and extorting a man, demanding $2,000 for his release, local media reported.
Police officials have also been closely linked to drug trafficking. A May 15 Ecuavisa investigation revealed that two anti-narcotics police officers had stolen 321 kilograms of seized cocaine from an official police warehouse in Guayaquil in February 2024. The stolen drugs, with an estimated value of $400,000, were then sold to transnational cocaine traffickers, including the Lobos, the investigation found.
The warehouse thefts were reported by the then-head of the anti-narcotics police in Guayaquil, Guillermo Palacios, who recently had to leave Ecuador after receiving threats. The case, he told InSight Crime, was far from an isolated incident.
“Organized crime has strategically penetrated the most sensitive logistical areas of the country: ports, airports, and evidence warehouses,” he said.
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Top officials have sought to reassure the public in the wake of these mounting corruption cases. Following the arrest of the police officers for extortion, police commander General Pablo Dávila emphasized that “a few” should not tarnish the work of “thousands.” The army echoed a similar line after the arrest of the sub-lieutenant leaking intelligence.
Yet, in Ecuador, where the government has declared an internal armed conflict to combat powerful criminal gangs, just 34% of Ecuadorians have confidence in the police, according to an April 2024 survey by Ipsos, a market research and polling firm. While the same study found that the military gained popularity after President Daniel Noboa deployed them to fight his war on gangs, the most recent Conflict Sensitivity Analysis by the International Rescue Committee, published November 2024, reports a growing erosion of trust in all state security forces.
InSight Crime Analysis
President Noboa has focused on strengthening security forces through increased funding and expanded powers, but his administration has failed to address deep-rooted corruption that pervades every level of these institutions.
Despite the increase in resources provided, chronic underfunding from previous eras still makes officers susceptible to bribery, while weak institutional safeguards mean corruption often goes undetected and unpunished. “Internal investigations are slow and rarely result in dismissals,” Glaeldys González Calanche, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said.
This is compounded by a lack of measures to prevent corruption, Palacios added. “There is a lack of effective filters, including the absence of criminological audits, socioeconomic verification protocols for staff, and systematic trust tests.”
While instituting these measures could help slow misconduct, a history of deeply rooted corruption permeating from the highest levels of the security forces raises doubts about the officials’ will for change.
This corruption was called out by the United States’ ambassador to Ecuador, who in 2021 spoke out against the presence of “narco generals” within the police force. The US government later revoked the visas of at least three of high-level police officials it believed were linked to organized crime, Primicias reported. Evidence of such top-level corruption later emerged after the death of Leandro Norero, one of Ecuador’s most prominent drug traffickers, in 2022. Norero, his communications showed, maintained connections with a number of high-level officials, including General Pablo Ramírez, who headed both the prison authority and the police’s anti-narcotics unit prior to his conviction on charges of collaborating with organized crime.
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President Noboa has recently introduced legislative packages, the National Solidarity Law (Ley de Solidaridad Nacional) and the Intelligence Law (Ley Orgánica de Inteligencia), aimed at expanding the state’s tools to combat organized crime. But, measures to address criminal infiltration of security forces were notably absent from the laws. Instead, they enact broad legal protections — like pardons and bans on pretrial detention — for security forces, in addition to eroding oversight on intelligence spending and personnel.
“Without a clear institutional purging policy, these types of laws can worsen impunity,” Palacios warned, citing the presence of compromised officials within the ranks and the lack of oversight.
Ecuador’s challenges with corruption within the security forces are not unique in Latin America. Prominent recent cases have been seen in Mexico, where multiple police branches have been dissolved due to collusion with criminal groups, with new units often facing similar fates. Organized crime has penetrated the highest reaches of the security forces, allegedly reaching the former head of the military, Salvador Cienfuegos, as well as the former public security secretary, Genaro García Luna. Similarly, in Honduras, former police chief Juan Carlos Bonilla and ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández—have been extradited and convicted on drug trafficking charges.
Featured image: Police in Nueva Prosperina, a district in northwestern Guayaquil, line up for orders before heading out on patrol. Credit: Steven Dudley / InSight Crime