Ecuador's Gangster Insurgency: The Endless Cartel War

“Ecuador’s gangster insurgency.” That was how narco-journalist Ioan Grillo referred to the conflict that ignited at the start of January 2024. The conflict began with a coordinated series of attacks across the country, but it forcefully entered the global consciousness when armed gang members invaded a television station and took hostages live on the air.

In the immediate aftermath, newly installed President Daniel Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of “internal armed conflict.” This declaration triggered the rapid, mass deployment of the military into the nation’s prisons and slums. The subsequent crackdown aimed to crush the gangster insurgency and the drug trafficking groups that spawned it once and for all.

At first, this massive show of state force appeared effective. Homicides dropped, tens of thousands of suspected gang members were arrested, and prominent drug kingpins like Los Choneros’ leader, Fito, were captured and extradited to the United States to stand trial. However, as the second year of Ecuador’s internal armed conflict draws toward its close, indicators suggest that conditions may be deteriorating further.

This once-peaceful Andean nation may be heading down the path not of El Salvador’s brutal victory over its gangs, but rather of Mexico’s endless drug war.

The Statistical Reality of a National Crisis

For a visitor arriving in Ecuador’s capital of Quito, daily life might appear remarkably normal. Bars remain open, tourist attractions function as usual, and approximately two million residents continue working, shopping, studying, and socializing. Standing in the historical center, there is little visible evidence that the country is in a state of war.

However, an examination of the statistics reveals the grim reality of Ecuador’s situation in 2025. Along the coastlines, a wave of violence is unfolding that surpasses almost anything else seen in South or Central America, marking a gang-fueled descent into severe instability. By August 2025, over 5,200 people had been murdered in Ecuador.

Current projections suggest approximately 9,100 homicides will take place by the end of the year, out of a population of roughly 18 million. Comparisons between national murder statistics typically focus on the number of homicides per 100,000 people. For instance, while Brazil recorded nearly 45,000 murders in 2024—comfortably the highest total of any Latin American nation—its vast population meant the homicide rate was 21.1 per 100,000.

This is lower than Honduras, which recorded only 2,500 murders across the year but possesses a far smaller population. While this per capita method can occasionally provide skewed impressions—Turks and Caicos had the highest murder rate in the Americas in 2024, achieved with just 48 total homicides—it remains the generally accepted metric for assessing relative national safety. On this criteria, Ecuador is on a sharp downward trajectory.

Should current projections hold true, the country will end 2025 with a homicide rate of approximately 50 per 100,000. That figure is twice as high as Mexico’s murder rate and higher than South Africa’s. It nearly reaches the level recorded in Venezuela in 2014, a period when the Bolivarian Republic was experiencing outright state collapse.

While this is not the highest rate the Americas have recorded this century—El Salvador hit 103 homicides per 100,000 people in 2015—Ecuador’s case is uniquely shocking due to the sheer speed of the deterioration. In 2018, the country had a homicide rate of 6 per 100,000, on par with the United States. As recently as 2020, it maintained a rate of 7.7.

For most of the previous decade, Ecuador ranked among the safest nations in Latin America. To escalate from 7.7 to 50 homicides per 100,000 in just five years represents a devastating statistical anomaly. For perspective, a proportional increase in the United States would take the nation from 22,830 total homicides in 2023 to roughly 168,000 murders annually.

At the municipal level, the data is even more severe. As the Wall Street Journal reported in September 2025: “Five of the world’s 12 most murderous cities are in Ecuador, with the city of Durán ranked No. 1, according to the Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian think tank that focuses on violence.” Durán alone has a staggering homicide rate of 140 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Just across the river, the larger port city of Guayaquil has accounted for roughly one-third of all murders committed in Ecuador this year. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) estimates that 80 percent of all violence in Ecuador occurs in these coastal regions. Beyond the macro statistics, the human toll is catastrophic.

A recent report in El Pais noted: “In Ecuador, between January and August of this year, 386 minors have been murdered, the equivalent of three children and teenagers being slain every 48 hours.” These victims include a five-year-old boy named Ezequiel, who was gunned down on the doorstep of his home in Guayaquil. Overall, murders of minors have increased by 50 percent compared to the previous year.

Cartel Encroachment and Structural Decay

The violence is defined by seemingly random acts of terror that ordinary citizens are forced to endure. In October, a car bomb detonated outside a shopping mall in Guayaquil, killing one person and injuring dozens. Recurring prison riots have resulted in scores of inmates being slaughtered.

Mass shootings have become increasingly common, such as the March attack in the deprived neighborhood of Nueva Prosperina that killed 22 people. The unifying factor across these atrocities is the expanding territorial reach of Ecuador’s gangs. Now operating in over 150 of the country’s 222 municipalities, these syndicates have not been fundamentally broken by President Noboa’s military crackdown.

Today, conservative estimates place total gang membership at 15,000, while some analysts believe the true figure exceeds 60,000. This represents a massive insurgent force engaging in a semi-hidden war across slums and port cities, marked by extreme, theatrical violence. Gangsters have left the corpses of victims hanging from bridges, utilized decapitated heads for intimidation, and stormed funerals to shoot at the caskets of rivals, killing attending friends and family members in the process.

The escalation in brutality heavily mirrors the tactics of Mexican organized crime. While Ecuador’s descent into chaos involves multiple contributing factors, the arrival of Mexico’s cartels fundamentally altered the operational landscape. Throughout the 2010s, Ecuador belonged to an exclusive cohort of Latin American nations—alongside Uruguay and Chile—characterized by low murder rates.

However, as Quito cultivated its reputation for stability, structural political decisions began to undermine national security. Former leftist President Rafael Correa made the strategic choice to close down a local United States military base that had been established to monitor regional drug traffickers. Subsequently, his protege and successor, Lenín Moreno, dismantled state agencies dedicated to fighting corruption.

Moreno also slashed the national prison budget by 30 percent, a critical misstep executed just as local gangs were beginning to utilize penitentiaries as central hubs for recruitment and operational planning. External geopolitical shifts further exacerbated Ecuador’s vulnerability. In 2016, neighboring Colombia signed a historic peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ending fifty years of continuous warfare.

Although initially founded as a Marxist rebellion, FARC had evolved into a dominant, highly armed drug trafficking network. As long as FARC controlled the trafficking routes and cocaine production facilities along the Ecuadorian border, rival syndicates were effectively deterred from infiltrating the territory. The 2016 peace deal dismantled that monopoly, suddenly leaving hyper-lucrative drug trafficking corridors unprotected and available for acquisition.

Unsurprisingly, 2016 marked the first confirmed appearance of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Ecuador. They were swiftly following their notorious rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel, who had already been quietly establishing a foothold in the country for several years.

Prison Massacres and the Erosion of the State

The Sinaloa Cartel leveraged its early presence in Ecuador to recruit the prominent local gang Los Choneros, effectively granting them control over key cocaine transit routes. However, Los Choneros was not a unified, disciplined crime syndicate. In a relentless bid to consolidate power as they integrated deeper into the international drug trade, they aggressively forced smaller, independent gangs to join their ranks under the threat of extreme violence.

When the Jalisco New Generation Cartel expanded into Ecuador, they encountered a local criminal underworld already simmering with intense resentment toward Sinaloa’s primary proxy. Jalisco only needed a catalyst to exploit that underlying anger, and in December 2020, they found it. Los Choneros’ leader, known as Rasquiña, was assassinated at a shopping mall.

Following the assassination, the underworld fractured. As the Wall Street Journal reported: “Smaller gangs that had been led by the Choneros—the Wolves, the Tiguerones and the Chone Killers—initially coalesced into a new Jalisco proxy called New Generation… The smaller gangs sought ties with Jalisco, believing an alliance with Sinaloa’s rival would allow them to confront the Choneros.” This confrontation resulted in a rapid accumulation of casualties.

From this newly formed alliance, a highly aggressive faction emerged to become perhaps Ecuador’s most formidable criminal force: Los Lobos. Yet, the fracturing of Los Choneros alone does not fully explain the total collapse of public security. The proxy war between Mexico’s two most feared cartels ignited in a country that was uniquely ill-equipped to manage it.

The budgetary cuts initiated by President Moreno occurred alongside a massive expansion of the incarcerated population. According to ACLED, Ecuador’s prison population more than tripled between 2010 and 2020. Severe overcrowding, combined with a severe lack of state funding, allowed these heavily armed gangs to physically seize control of the nation’s penitentiaries.

The prisons were transformed into fortified command centers from which syndicate leaders orchestrated international smuggling and local extortion. Consequently, the war between Los Choneros and the Jalisco-backed factions first erupted behind bars. Throughout 2021, over 200 prisoners were killed in a horrific series of riots and massacres.

The most severe incident occurred in Guayaquil in September 2021, where, as The Guardian reported, “many of the victims were butchered with chainsaws or beheaded with machetes.” Simultaneously, Ecuador’s political institutions were being systematically compromised by the massive influx of illicit drug revenue. Sprawling anti-corruption investigations later revealed that significant portions of the judiciary, the state security apparatus, and the highest echelons of politics were actively conspiring to facilitate cartel operations.

Former Attorney General Diana Salazar summarized the crisis in The Economist: “High-level cases—the biggest of which were given names, such as Metástasis, Purga and Plaga—revealed strong links between criminal groups and politicians, journalists, lawyers, judicial officials and even former legislators.” This institutional rot reached its zenith in 2023 when it was exposed that the brother-in-law of then-President Guillermo Lasso possessed extensive connections to the Albanian mafia, which, alongside Italian organized crime elements, was violently competing for a share of Ecuador’s cocaine export boom. Facing mounting embezzlement scandals and the threat of imminent impeachment, Lasso dissolved the National Assembly and resigned the presidency two years early.

This unprecedented maneuver had profound consequences. As the prison wars spilled onto the civilian streets, the volatile electoral environment incentivized the gangs to deploy political violence to manipulate the outcome, ultimately plunging the nation further into anarchy.

The Internal Armed Conflict and Cartel Splintering

Prior to the current year, 2023 held the grim distinction of being the bloodiest period in Ecuador’s modern history. The national murder rate skyrocketed to 46 per 100,000—placing the country on par with Haiti, which was simultaneously experiencing a gang-driven state collapse. Among the thousands of victims were nearly 100 individuals explicitly targeted in a wave of political violence unleashed during the election cycle.

The most prominent casualty was presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Running on a fierce anti-corruption platform, Villavicencio was shot and killed in August 2023 following a campaign rally in Quito. The assassination is widely believed to have been executed by Los Lobos.

While his high-profile death brought international attention to Ecuador’s deteriorating security environment, 2023 was already defined by extreme bloodshed. In this chaotic climate, voters elected Daniel Noboa, a 35-year-old centrist who campaigned on a strict, tough-on-crime platform. Assuming office on November 23, 2023, Noboa’s initial mandate was merely to complete the remainder of former President Lasso’s term.

However, within seven weeks, he found himself leading a nation in a formalized state of war. The catalyst for this escalation was the back-to-back prison escapes of the top leaders of Los Choneros and Los Lobos in early January 2024. The crisis peaked on January 9, when the gangs launched a coordinated national offensive.

Following Noboa’s declaration of a 60-day state of emergency, the gangster insurgency initiated a day of sheer terror: explosives were detonated, police officers were kidnapped, prisons were overrun, guards were lynched, and gunmen assaulted hospitals and attempted to abduct university students. The live televised storming of the Guayaquil broadcast station forced Noboa to officially designate 22 separate gangs as terrorist organizations and deploy the armed forces under the framework of an “internal armed conflict.” Initially, the aggressive militarization appeared successful.

Violence plummeted in the first quarter of 2024, propelling Noboa to become the most popular leader in Latin America, briefly surpassing even El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Ecuador ended 2024 with a slightly reduced murder rate of 38 per 100,000, and the state seemed to have reasserted partial control over the prison system. However, this progress proved entirely temporary.

As 2025 began, violence surged to what ACLED described as “unprecedented levels.” The resurgence is largely driven by a phenomenon previously observed in Europe. When European authorities dismantled the EncroChat encrypted messaging network in 2020, arresting top syndicate leaders, countries like Sweden experienced an unexpected paradox: the removal of apex crime bosses actually triggered increased violence.

The destruction of dominant cartels created a massive power vacuum, prompting smaller, highly aggressive factions to battle for the newly available territory. This exact dynamic is fueling Ecuador’s 2025 crisis. As the state’s military crackdown shattered larger syndicates, the resulting splinter groups immediately initiated brutal turf wars.

For example, Los Tiguerones, allegedly behind the infamous TV station attack, was led by a commander known as “Negro Willy.” Following his arrest in Spain in late 2024, the Guayaquil-based gang violently fractured into warring factions. Similarly, after the leader of the Los Chone Killers, “Ben 10,” was assassinated in Colombia in December, his organization disintegrated into five separate splinter groups fighting for control of Durán.

The extradition of Los Choneros leader Fito to the United States produced identical results. As the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime noted: “This trend is driven by divisions within criminal groups resulting from the arrest, murder or extradition of their leaders… The current wave shows a more dispersed and volatile pattern, with the emergence of new criminal groups lacking solid hierarchical structures, which is leading to more frequent and unpredictable acts of violence.”

Economic Devastation and the Threat of an Endless War

While it might be tempting to dismiss the rising murder count as criminals simply eliminating one another, the reality is far more destructive. The theatrical, hyper-visible violence favored by these splinters—such as abandoning headless corpses in public squares or executing rivals at funerals—fundamentally destabilizes civil society. This pervasive insecurity inflicts severe damage on the national economy.

According to the International Monetary Fund, “A 1 percent increase in the local murder rate is associated with a decline in the level of economic activity of up to 0.5 percent.” Furthermore, the violence is rarely contained to active combatants. Innocent civilians are routinely killed in the crossfire or targeted by rampant extortion rackets, perfectly exemplified by the tragic death of five-year-old Ezequiel.

Compounding the crisis, the military operations designed to restore order have been increasingly marred by severe human rights abuses. A heavily scrutinized incident occurred in December 2024, when the burned bodies of four boys, aged between 11 and 15, were discovered near a military base on Christmas Eve. Investigations revealed they had been detained by an army patrol while walking to a soccer game, leading to their subsequent deaths in state custody.

As 2025 draws to a close, Ecuador faces a compounding disaster: a surging homicide rate fueled by the unpredictable fracturing of criminal networks, and a military apparatus that is mirroring the tragic abuses and forced disappearances seen in previous Latin American “mano dura” (iron fist) campaigns. The trajectory of the conflict in 2026 will largely depend on two critical variables. First is the potential consolidation of the criminal underworld.

Los Lobos is actively negotiating alliances that could establish it as the undisputed hegemon of Ecuador’s gang ecosystem. While this consolidation would not halt international drug smuggling, it could suppress the daily street violence. The Global Initiative explains: “This consolidation would reinforce Los Lobos’ territorial and logistical control, strengthen drug trafficking routes and extend the group’s dominance into illegal mining and extortion, temporarily lowering levels of armed violence as a result of the group’s dominance.”

The second critical variable is whether the Noboa administration can pivot from its purely militarized approach to a comprehensive strategy that addresses the structural causes of gang dominance in the coastal provinces. The initial military deployment was tactically justified during the acute crisis of early 2024, but the subsequent spike in homicides and the devastating return of prison massacres—including two separate September 2025 riots that left 30 inmates dead—demonstrate that brute force has reached its operational limits. Formulating an effective alternative is immensely complex, but the cost of failing to adapt is existential.

In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched a massive, militarized offensive against the cartels. Nearly two decades later, Mexico’s drug war continues unabated, having resulted in the disappearance of over 100,000 people and the permanent loss of state control over vast swaths of territory, while cartels boldly expand into legal agricultural sectors like the avocado trade. Ecuador is not inevitably doomed to replicate the Mexican experience.

However, the current trajectory serves as a stark warning of how a state can commit entirely to the total destruction of localized gangs, only to find itself locked in an unwinnable, multi-decade war of attrition. Nearly two years after declaring an internal armed conflict, the ultimate outcome of Ecuador’s gangster insurgency remains perilously unresolved.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did Ecuador go from one of Latin America’s safest countries to one of its most violent?

Ecuador had a homicide rate of just 6 per 100,000 in 2018 and 7.7 in 2020, placing it among Latin America’s safest nations. The collapse was driven by a combination of factors: the 2016 FARC peace deal in Colombia opened uncontested drug trafficking corridors, drawing the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels into Ecuador. Simultaneously, a 30 percent prison budget cut under President Moreno allowed gangs to physically seize control of overcrowded penitentiaries and use them as command centers, igniting a proxy war between cartel-backed factions that soon spilled onto civilian streets.

What triggered Ecuador’s declaration of an “internal armed conflict” in January 2024?

The immediate catalyst was the back-to-back prison escapes of the top leaders of Los Choneros and Los Lobos in early January 2024, followed by a coordinated national offensive on January 9. Gangs detonated explosives, kidnapped police officers, overran prisons, and most visibly, armed gunmen stormed a Guayaquil television station and took hostages live on air. In response, President Daniel Noboa officially designated 22 gangs as terrorist organizations and deployed the armed forces under the framework of an internal armed conflict.

Why did violence surge again in 2025 after Noboa’s crackdown appeared to be working?

The military crackdown shattered larger criminal syndicates but created a power vacuum filled by smaller, more aggressive splinter groups. When apex bosses were arrested or extradited — such as Los Choneros leader Fito to the United States, or Los Tiguerones commander “Negro Willy” arrested in Spain — their organizations fractured into warring factions battling for territory. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime described this as “a more dispersed and volatile pattern, with the emergence of new criminal groups lacking solid hierarchical structures, which is leading to more frequent and unpredictable acts of violence.”

How did Mexican cartels reshape Ecuador’s criminal landscape?

The Sinaloa Cartel established an early presence in Ecuador by recruiting Los Choneros to control cocaine transit routes. When the Jalisco New Generation Cartel expanded into Ecuador, it exploited resentment toward Los Choneros by backing smaller gangs, including what became Los Lobos. The December 2020 assassination of Los Choneros leader Rasquiña fractured the criminal underworld, with Jalisco-aligned groups coalescing into a new alliance that sparked the brutal cartel proxy war. The theatrical violence these groups import — beheadings, corpses on bridges, funeral shootings — directly mirrors the tactics of Mexican organized crime.

What are the two critical variables that will determine Ecuador’s trajectory in 2026?

According to analysts, the first variable is whether Los Lobos can consolidate the criminal underworld under its dominance. While such consolidation would not end drug trafficking, it could suppress daily street violence by eliminating the turf wars between splinter groups. The second variable is whether the Noboa administration can shift from its purely militarized approach to a comprehensive strategy addressing the structural causes of gang dominance — poverty, corruption, and the coastal social conditions that fuel recruitment. Military force alone has demonstrably reached its operational limits, as evidenced by the September 2025 prison riots that killed 30 inmates.

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