Over the last five years, Ecuador has been engulfed in violence and a criminal chaos unprecedented in its modern history. The roots of this security crisis can be traced directly to the country’s prison system and the criminal networks that have grown inside of it. The evolution of these networks can be explained by the interaction between failed government reforms, institutional weaknesses, national and international criminal dynamics, and the actions of key criminal actors.
For a full history of Ecuador’s prison system, explore the rest of the investigation here and download the report (PDF) here.
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Ecuador’s Original Sin: Punitive Laws and Overcrowded Prisons
The beginnings of Ecuador’s prison crisis can be traced back to one of the most punitive drug laws in the Western Hemisphere, which filled the nation’s prisons beyond capacity with low-level drug offenders. The overcrowded prisons suffered from crumbling infrastructure, dire sanitary conditions, and inadequate healthcare, food, and education and rehabilitation programs. Corruption was generalized, with prison guards bringing in contraband, charging inmates for basic services such as escorting them to medical appointments or court hearings, and selling better living conditions. Imprisoned gang members gained power in the system by smuggling and selling drugs, alcohol, and weapons, extorting other inmates, and threatening and even murdering prison officials.
1991: Law 108 comes into force
One of the most punitive drug laws in the region, Law 108 placed drug-related crimes on the same level as murder, armed robbery, and rape and kidnapping. It also introduced mandatory minimum sentences of ten years.
July 2005: Guayaquil Prison Director Eddy Henríquez is murdered
Henríquez was gunned down as he left the prison, reportedly because of his attempts to control the entry of drugs and weapons into the facility.
April 2007: Guayaquil Prison Director Elba Soledad Rodríguez León is murdered
Rodriguez was shot by two gunmen acting on the orders of Guayaquil gang boss William Poveda Salazar, alias “El Cubano.”
Correa’s New System with Old Problems
The government of Rafael Correa pledged to build an entirely new prison system based on a vision of rehabilitation over punishment. The construction of new “mega-prisons” and reforms to the criminal code softening sentences for drug crimes initially helped tackle overcrowding. But the new facilities were poorly constructed and badly run, lacking basic facilities and services, while the rehabilitation system was barely functional. Overcrowding soon returned following a policy U-turn on the criminal code, compounded by failures to tackle the overuse of pretrial detention. Corruption networks and organized crime stepped into the vacuum, turning the state’s failings into lucrative rackets. With the population now concentrated in the mega-prisons, these produced enormous profits, and the prisons became one of Ecuador’s most important criminal economies. This money, along with growing access to the transnational cocaine trade by providing services to an emerging generation of Ecuadorian drug traffickers, funded the expansion of the Choneros, which grew by recruiting prison gangs into a broader criminal federation.
January 2007: Rafael Correa becomes president
Correa takes office declaring that the prisons are a “time bomb” that he would diffuse with progressive reforms.
September 2011: Choneros’ leader Jorge Luis Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña” is arrested
From within the prisons, Rasquiña and his top lieutenant José Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” set about recruiting other gangs to form a criminal federation.
2012: Construction of “mega-prisons” begins
As overcrowding in prisons hits 174% of capacity, a record high, construction begins on new prisons in Turi, Latatunga, and Guayaquil, as well as the renovation of Litoral prison in Guayaquil. By the time the work is finished, Ecuador’s prison capacity has increased to 29,000, and over half of the prisoners are held in those four facilities.
2012: The Colombian cocaine boom begins
Cocaine production in Colombia begins a sustained period of growth, reaching historic highs. This, added to the emergence of the port of Guayaquil as a major route to the growing consumer markets in Europe, turns Ecuador into a global cocaine hub and leads to the rise of a new generation of homegrown drug traffickers.
2014: The new Organic Comprehensive Criminal Code (Código Orgánico Integral Penal – COIP) comes into force
The new law softens drug laws and allows for the early release of more than 2,000 people. Overcrowding in the prisons is reduced to zero, and levels of violence plummet.
2015: The Criminal Code is revised
Tougher sentencing guidelines are implemented with a revision of the criminal code. Within a year, overcrowding has returned, with the system reaching 122% of capacity.
Gutting the System
Correa’s successor Lenín Moreno slashed the budget for the prison system and dismantled the ministry responsible for running it. In its place, the government created a new body which has since become notorious for corruption and incompetence: the National Comprehensive Care Service for Adults Deprived of their Liberty and Adolescent Offenders (Servicio Nacional de Atención Integral a Personas Adultas Privadas de Libertad y Adolescentes Infractores – SNAI). This measure essentially gutted the prison system at the exact moment the Choneros made their move to take over the prisons by launching attacks on rival gangs. At the same time, the Choneros were using their gang federation to expand in criminally strategic areas such as Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, and attempting to move up in the cocaine trade by establishing themselves as direct contractors of transnational drug trafficking organizations. These maneuvers saw the Choneros reach the peak of their power. This was short-lived, however, as the 2020 murder of Rasquiña led to the breakup of their federation.
May 2017: Lenín Moreno becomes president
Moreno assumes office with plans for sweeping structural reforms targeting what he denounced as the “pampered” and unnecessary government ministries of the Correa era.
January 2019: The government dissolves the Ministry of Justice and creates the SNAI
The reform, which was accompanied by a huge reduction in the prison system’s operating budget, massively weakens the operations and capacity of the prison authorities.
June 2019: El Cubano is murdered
A series of assassinations and massacres targeting the coalition of Guayaquil gangs that make up the Choneros’ principal rivals in the prisons culminates with the brutal murder of El Cubano in La Regional prison.
June 2020: Rasquiña is released from prison
A controversial and allegedly corrupt ruling frees the Choneros leader. The ruling that would later land one judge in prison and another under investigation.
August 2020: The Choneros kill 11 Lagartos
The killing in Litoral prison was Ecuador’s biggest prison massacre at the time. Afterward, the remaining Lagartos laid down their weapons and negotiated their transfer to a secluded prison facility. With this, the Choneros cemented their control over the main facilities, while the Lagartos were handed a protected operating base away from their rivals.
December 2020: Rasquiña is murdered
The mysterious murder of Rasquiña in a Manta shopping mall sparks the breakup of the Choneros federation.
The Mafia Wars
Rasquiña’s murder led to a realignment of the underworld, as former factions of the Choneros broke away to form a new coalition led by the Lobos, which attacked what remained of the Choneros network. As alliances and allegiances fluctuated, the conflict between the prison mafias caused violence to spiral. In the prisons, a series of brutal mass killings saw the violent death rate rise from 8.1 per 10,000 inmates in 2019 to 83.5 in 2021. This was reflected on the streets, where warring gang networks sent murder rates soaring from 7 per 100,000 people to 15 over the same period. After the first outbreak of violence in the prisons, authorities separated gangs, leaving each facility or wing in the control of a single group. The mafias also began to use terror tactics on the streets to pressure the authorities, culminating in the assassination of anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.
February 2021: Violence in multiple prisons leaves 79 dead
The conflict between the Choneros and the New Generation coalition erupts in a day of violence, with the different mafias attacking their rivals in prisons across the country. Following the violence, authorities separated the gangs, cementing mafia control over the prisons.
September 2021: Fighting in Litoral leaves at least 119 dead
A clash between rival mafias leads to the deadliest prison massacre in Ecuador’s history. This single day of violence would account for over a quarter of the 459 deaths registered by the Ministry of Defense in 14 incidences of mass violence between 2021 and 2023.
April 2022: 20 killed in a massacre in Turi prison
Fighting erupts between the Lobos and the R7 gang in an early sign of the fracturing of the Lobos-led coalition. The dispute between them would lead to five subsequent massacres, claiming 94 lives.
October 2022: Drug trafficker Leandro Norero is killed in a prison massacre that leaves 16 dead
The murder of Norero, the main backer and financier of the New Generation, precedes another criminal realignment as several mafias reestablish relations with the Choneros and launch a new war against the Lobos.
November 2022: Government orders mass transfers amid street violence
A series of apparently coordinated violent attacks, including car bombs and the murder of police officers, come as the government orders the transfer of hundreds of prisoners out of Litoral.
August 2023: Presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio is murdered
The former journalist turned politician was killed at a campaign event. His career investigating and exposing organized crime and corruption had left him with a long list of enemies, but the Lobos would emerge as the prime suspects in the murder.
November 2023: Daniel Noboa becomes president in a special election
The young scion of a banana mogul had initially campaigned on the importance of social interventions in tackling organized crime. But as public fears grew after the Villavicencio killing, he changed tack with a raft of proposals for a hard-line militaristic response to the security crisis.
Militarization and a New Criminal Cycle
New President Daniel Noboa declares the country to be in an “internal armed conflict” with 22 “terrorist” groups after his attempts to use security forces to remove top mafia leaders sparked two days of chaos and violence on the streets and in the prisons. His government deploys the military to take over the prisons and to lead a hard-line security crackdown on the streets. The operations are accompanied by allegations of widespread human rights abuses. In the months that followed, there were growing signs of corruption of the military officials that remained deployed to the prisons and evidence of the mafias seeking to reestablish their control. Furthermore, the weakening of leadership ties between the prisons and the streets accelerated a trend towards the atomization of the mafias, leading to increased territorial disputes and predatory criminal activities carried out by smaller, autonomous gangs. Simmering tensions erupted in November, when a confrontation between gangs left at least 17 dead and 14 injured in Litoral. Violence on the streets soon followed, with attacks and threats by the groups involved in the killing.
January 2024: Fito escapes
Noboa deploys the military and police to transfer top gang leaders. However, when they storm La Regional prison to remove Fito, they find that he has already escaped. The move triggers two days of street violence coordinated by the gangs, culminating in the on-air takeover of a TV station.
January 2024: Noboa declares war
The president responds to the violence by declaring Ecuador is in an “internal armed conflict” with “terrorist” groups and deploys the military to the prisons and on the streets.
April 2024: Rodeo prison director, Damián Parrales Merchán, is murdered
The killing of Parrales would be the first of three murders of prison directors in 2024 as the mafias attempted to reassert their power.
June 2024: Construction begins on new prison in Santa Elena
The new maximum security facility is designed to hold 800 of Ecuador’s most dangerous prisoners. To date, it is the only major measure the government has taken to address the prison crisis since deploying the military.
November 2024: 15 killed in Litoral prison massacre
Prison violence returns with a mass killing in a wing of Litoral where multiple gangs are now disputing control. The killing is followed by an attack with explosives in a neighborhood in Guayaquil.