Chone Killers
The Chone Killers have embodied the mutation of Ecuador’s organized crime landscape from low-level street gangs to sophisticated, extremely violent…
Ecuador’s Lobos Turn El Oro Province Into Battleground
The Ecuadorian coastal province El Oro has emerged as a new hotspot for violence, as splintering criminal groups compete for…
Violence Transforms Ecuador’s Migration Landscape
A year after Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declared war on organized crime, the country is grappling with a surge in…
Ecuador Gang Dynamic Feeds Record Homicides
The recent killing of a prominent Ecuadorian gang leader may further fuel violence in Durán, one of the country’s most…
GameChangers 2024: Global Cocaine Networks and Trump 2
Increased cocaine production delivered an extra $25 billion in earnings to transnational organized crime in 2024, ensuring greater criminal sophistication…
GameChangers 2024: Organized Crime Gets Political
Criminal organizations showed this past year that they pose a growing threat to democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean,…
GameChangers 2024: Ecuador Finds Victory Elusive in ‘War on Gangs’
Ecuador became the latest Latin American nation to turn to a militarized response to combat organized crime in 2024. But…
GameChangers 2024: Resistance to Organized Crime Withers
Welcome to GameChangers 2024, where we chronicle the major stories and trend lines of the last 12 months and preview…
The Prison Mafias: Ecuador’s Criminal Axis
Organized crime in Ecuador today operates on several levels. At the upper echelons are the drug traffickers who control Ecuador’s…
The Evolution of Ecuador’s Prison Crisis
Over the last five years, Ecuador has been engulfed in violence and a criminal chaos unprecedented in its modern history.…