The murders of three young women in Ecuador have highlighted the explosion of violence in a country brought to its knees by drug cartels.
Although the mysterious murder of three friends on a beach trip has never been officially linked to the cocaine trade, the drug lords’ shadow hangs over every facet of the terrifying crime wave that has swept Ecuador in recent years.
The discovery of Naili Tapia, 22, Yuliana Macías, 21, and Denis Reyna, 19, all slashed with their throats added three more names to the dismal count that has seen the murder rate soar to record levels, an increase of a staggering 180 per cent. From 2020 to 2021.
Last year’s total rose another 82%, making Ecuador the homicide capital of Latin America, having overtaken Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
Police attribute 80 percent of these killings to bloody wars between criminal groups vying to control the distribution and export of cocaine.
The murdered women have been identified (from left to right) as Yuliana Macías (21), Denise Rina (19) and Naili Tapia (22).
Dramatic CCTV footage shows people jumping for their lives into the sea under a hail of bullets
The horrific discovery of the girls’ murder is made by some hunters who notice a dog sniffing the ground beside a river bank, where it smells bad.
The bodies of the women were uncovered along the Esmeralda River near Quinende, Ecuador, last week. In the fishing port of Esmaraldas, 60 miles downriver from the girls’ killing ground, a prolonged shootout between drug cartels leaves nine people dead.
When singer Yuliana – seen here on CCTV embarking on her fateful final journey – and her two friends, a model and a student, were found in shallow graves on a remote stretch of the Esmaraldas River near Quinende, the story made international headlines.
The place it was found is far from the urban squalor of big cities, off the only road to Esmeralda and its popular beaches, deep in a tropical jungle dotted with plantations of palm oil and balsa wood.
But in the days that followed, the equally horrific crimes failed to gain such worldwide attention.
In the fishing port of Esmaraldas, 60 miles downriver from the girls’ killing ground, a prolonged shootout between drug cartels leaves nine people dead. This dramatic footage, exclusive to closed-circuit television, shows people jumping for their lives into the sea under a hail of bullets.
The next day, six dead bodies are found hanging inside a prison in another gang atrocity.
The families of the three girls have pleaded with people not to speculate that their deaths are related to drug trafficking – there is certainly no direct evidence to link them to such activities.
There is also an alarmingly high rate of so-called “femicide” in Ecuador and elsewhere – the killing of women simply because of their sex.
And media in Esmeralda County reported that their bodies had been bound, butchered and with their mouths covered. Pictured: Denise Rinna, 19 (left) and Naili Tapia, 22 (right)
But the devastation wrought by drug traffickers and their henchmen has left no facet of Ecuadorian society intact.
It is no longer just limited to deadly gangster killings and stray bullets.
Kidnap gangs target the gated communities of the affluent Quito suburbs with surveillance drones, kidnapping people on their way home from parties. Violent crime rates remain high in Guayaquil and Quito, with reports of murders, gun robberies and home invasions. Most violent crime is gang-related, but tourists can get caught unintentionally,” the British Foreign Office warned.
Just this week, a 105-page directory of members of the Guayaquil Tennis Club, including Ecuador’s conservative president Guillermo Laso himself, appeared on social networks, claiming to be a list of kidnapping targets.
“There are events clearly intended to create anxiety and fear among citizens,” Diego Ordonez, the former security minister, said this week – in his resignation letter after the Esmeralda massacre.
Formerly known as the ‘Pearl of the Pacific’, Guayaquil, the country’s largest port, is the undisputed capital of Ecuador’s ‘new narcos’ and last year achieved the unenviable feat of ranking 24th in what Insight calls Crime League Table of “The World’s Deadliest Cities”.
Total homicides last year rose another 82% in Ecuador, making it the homicide capital of Latin America, having overtaken Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
Police officers were called to the burial place of the three women, where they dug up and uncovered the bodies of the young women from a shallow grave.
The crowded city, along with much of the lowlands on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, has been under a state of emergency for months to try to quell the violence.
Residents are required to stay home from 1am to 5am, although in Esmeraldas, many shops close as early as 4pm for fear of the night time cartels.
Journalists who dare question the new dominance are dealt with ruthlessly — either shot — or, if they’re lucky enough — admonished by computer memory cards sent through the mail, packed with enough explosives to maim or blind the recipient.
For decades, Ecuadorians were proud that their country had escaped the civil unrest that claimed thousands of lives in neighboring Colombia and Peru, which along with Bolivia are the three countries where coca, the main ingredient of cocaine, is grown.
But after the leftist government of Rafael Correa shut down a US air base in 2009 that monitored cocaine trafficking, the cartels found local affiliates infiltrating Ecuador across its porous borders with Colombia and Peru, opening up new drug routes to North America and Europe.
“The violence now in Ecuador is greater than in Colombia, and it is related to the new conditions of drug trafficking,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said this week (April 13).
Fighting over land and distribution routes led to violence and spilled over into the slums of port cities, especially Guayaquil, and raged in the country’s prisons. Nearly 400 people have been killed in horrific prison riots since early 2020.
Preliminary investigations indicate that the women were killed in the rural town of Malembia, in Quinende District, on April 5. Pictured: 19-year-old Denise Rinna
Victims’ families said they did not know which friends their relatives were supposed to meet. Pictured: Denise Rinna
And it’s not just Colombian and Mexican gangs that have moved into Ecuador in force. As revealed by the Daily Mail last month, Albanian gangs have stepped in to control the lucrative smuggling route between Ecuador, the UK and Europe.
The Mail has revealed how Albanian ‘capos’ and their followers control every aspect of the trade right up to the end point – the £2 billion cocaine market in almost all major cities and suburbs of Britain.
Albanians started arriving in Ecuador a decade ago, not long after President Correa decided foreigners could stay up to six months without a visa.
In fact, he was opening doors for Albanian traffickers – for whom the chance of being rejected was very good.
Behind the headlines, daily life in Guayaquil is unbearable, with protection rackets driving many shops and businesses out of business.
People who refused to pay were killed, like Enrique Morales, the man who organized his neighborhood to resist the extortionists. Car bombs exploded near gas stations.
In the Guasmo slum, near the city’s port, a recent report by respected NGO Crisis Group found that the livelihoods of many ordinary families now depend on the drug trade, with men selling cocaine while women packing it in plastic bags.
Residents say the police are either too afraid to patrol or buy them in, adding that some officers have joined the gang, which the police deny.
Crisis Group co-author Gladys Gonzalez-Calanche told MailOnline that drug influence is spreading across the country: “These groups are slowly gaining more control over land or territory outside of these areas that they currently run.”
Ironically, one of the main areas in which gangs have proven their dominance is the prison system itself.
In Guayaquil’s notorious and sprawling “La Peña” district, various gangs control 12 wards, and according to Calanche: ‘They have become operations centers for these criminal groups and hotbeds of violence as they fight for control of illegal businesses both inside and outside the prison.
In 2019, William Cubano Humberto Poveda, the leader of his Cuban gang, was beheaded and burned in prison, and horrific videos circulated of prisoners playing soccer with her.
Crisis Group proposes a “comprehensive security strategy” to address “deep-rooted social and economic measures”, along with programs to rehabilitate young prisoners to provide them with an alternative to the drug economy through education or employment.
But now, scandalously, corrupt judges have released notorious drug dealers and suspects with multiple arrests, adding to the insecurities.
And last August, in what authorities described as a “declaration of war on the state” by organized crime, five people were killed and 20 wounded in a bomb and shooting attack in Guayaquil.
In an open letter to President Lasso, the city’s mayor wrote that “criminal gangs have become a state within a state.”
With 50 tons so far this year, cocaine seizures are on track to repeat the 2022 record of 201 tons – making the country the world’s bronze medalist in cocaine ban.
Chief Lasso, whose approval ratings have plummeted during the crime crisis, said this severely slashed the cartel’s profits and put the government and the people in the crosshairs.
But the families of Yuliana, Naylee and Dennis are still waiting at home for the police to call with news of the arrest.
