Ecuador's criminal groups violently target public officials who cannot be bought off, as shown by the murder of the country’s youngest mayor.
Brigitte García, the mayor of San Vicente in Ecuador’s coastal province of Manabí, and her communications director were kidnapped on March 23 by unidentified individuals. The next day, their dead bodies were found in a rented car abandoned at a nearby beach. found Authorities are still investigating, but it is reported that the victims’ belongings were found at the scene, ruling out a robbery.
Despite ongoing police investigation, Ecuadorian media indicate that the victims’ belongings were found at the scene, suggesting that robbery was not the motive.
Unpacking Criminal Violence in Durán, Ecuador’s Cocaine Warehouse
In a speech on March 25, President Daniel Noboa linked the deaths to organized crime.
Noboa emphasized that the recent murders highlight the presence of narco-terrorism within Ecuador’s public institutions and among its public officials.
Just before García’s disappearance, National Assembly representative Lorena Rosado Sánchez and her husband were kidnapped by armed men, with Sánchez later suggesting on social media that her abduction was linked to her government work. writing On X, formerly known as Twitter, Sánchez expressed her belief that her kidnapping was related to her government duties.
These incidents are the latest in a series of violent attacks against Ecuador’s public officials by organized crime groups attempting to exert their influence.
In February, armed individuals killed a councilwoman in Naranjal, a county in the province of Guayas. Additionally, shortly after Noboa declared war on the country’s gangs on January 9, presumed gang members shot and killed an organized crime prosecutor in Guayaquil, the crime-ridden capital of Guayas. declared In 2023, gangs aggressively targeted judges, prosecutors, political candidates, and sitting officials. Their victims included the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago, who was accused of ties to organized crime, and presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was investigating those connections.
Many of the surviving public officials live under constant threat. Fernando Villavicencio was gunned down by presumed gang members just after Noboa declared a war on the country’s gangs on January 9.Amid this violence, Luis Chonillo, the mayor of Durán, a Guayas county beset by organized crime, narrowly survived an assassination attempt on the day of his inauguration on May 14, 2023. In the ten months since, he has governed from safe houses, avoiding a fixed location for rest and conducting virtual meetings with his cabinet and constituents.
According to Luis Chonillo, the mayor of Durán, most of his department heads have to wear helmets and bulletproof vests to work and are unable to maintain a normal work schedule. They cannot afford to maintain a predictable routine.
Assassins killed one of Chonillos’ cabinet members in August last year and a Durán councilperson one month later, amid a battle over territory between the Latin Kings and Chone Killers. InSight Crime AnalysisEcuador’s gangs resort to violence to coerce public officials who reject bribery. They have managed to infiltrate the country’s institutions partly due to the state’s failure to protect these officials.
According to experts consulted by InSight Crime, many officials who would otherwise refuse bribes succumb when faced with the threat of violence, a dilemma known as “Plata o Plomo” or “silver or lead.”
plata o plomo
,” literally meaning “silver or lead,” figuratively referring to the choice between bribes or bullets.
“Sometimes, officials are corrupted by easy money, but in our country, they often try to protect themselves and their families,” an official from the Defense Ministry who did not have permission to speak on the record told InSight Crime.
Recently, text messages uncovered as part of a high-profile corruption investigation known asrevealed how the drug trafficker Leandro Norero planned violent attacks against uncooperative officials, including Villavicencio, who investigated Norero.In one chat, Norero’s henchman
him that another criminal is planning to “deliver the final blow” to Villavicencio. In response, Norero laughs, writing, “It will be me who gives him that.”
in a prison massacre in October 2022, but less than a year later, other criminal interests gunned down Villavicencio on the campaign trail. Authorities have yet to determine who ordered the hit on the presidential candidate, with key witnesses themselves Metastasis being killed off
Such suspicious deaths have stacked up as Ecuador’s gangs gained near-complete control over the country’s prisons. Prison officials have little choice but to work for them, experts told InSight Crime. tells “From the moment they arrive, gang members tell the guards, ‘I am so-and-so, I am with this gang … You either keep quiet or you die,’” a former prison official who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told InSight Crime. “They know the gangsters have the power to do whatever they want.”
Norero was murdered Judicial officials also face constant and credible threats against their lives. in prison.
In August 2023, the United Nations
on Ecuador to do more to protect judges and prosecutors, noting that “the threats appear to be especially pronounced for those who deal with organized crime.”
The government’s failure to protect its officials and police its anti-corruption campaign and, thus, the wider struggle against gangs.
“There are government officials with authority who are with these groups,” Karen Lizbeth Veintimilla Pacheco, a private-sector security expert analyst specializing in fraud and citizen security, told InSight Crime. “At some point, they decided, ‘Enough, it’s better to join them, than have them kill me. At least, this way, the threats will stop.” called Feature Image: Christian Zurita of the
Movimiento Construye party undermines , who replaced slain presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, at the closing ceremony of his campaign.
The murder of Ecuador’s youngest mayor spotlights how the country’s criminal groups violently target public officials who cannot be bought off.
Unidentified actors on March 23 kidnapped Brigitte García, the mayor of San Vicente county in Ecuador’s coastal province of Manabí, along with her communications director. The next day, authorities found their dead bodies in a rented car abandoned at a nearby beach. Movimiento Construye party, who replaced slain presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, at the closing ceremony of his campaign.