Drug trafficking in Ecuador is related to the dollarization that occurred a few months after a drought that followed the 1997 floods, during the Jamil Mahuad administration. This drought came with the arrival of the Humboldt Cold Current, which also brought a plague to shrimp farms, called the White Spot, which destroyed the largest shrimp exporter. The development of the shrimp industry since the 1980s destroyed 200,000 hectares of mangroves and displaced more than 120,000 families to the coast to work on shrimp farms, primarily capturing wild shrimp larvae using micro-nets, which killed all small species on the beaches and cliffs along 1,200 km of the Ecuadorian coast. Many of these shrimp farms were investments by Colombian drug traffickers or bankers who, through the 1997 constitution, were able to borrow their depositors' money, which they used to speculate with the dollar and finance shrimp farms.
The shrimp farms primarily employed guards, since robbery from shrimp farms generated large profits. However, these guards were left unemployed when the shrimp farms went bankrupt. The fishermen harvested the egg-laying female shrimp and the armed guards of the shrimp farms became unemployed. They used their boats and weapons to smuggle contraband into Colombia, especially gas and gasoline, which was needed for cocaine production and has been financed by the government for decades. They also smuggled cocaine base from Peru, which was refined in Colombia and from there sent by the Medellín Cartel and the Cali Cartel to the United States. From Colombia, they smuggled contraband, especially cocaine, which was transported to ships arriving at Ecuadorian ports. They paid for it with merchandise such as watches, weapons, Chinese products, and other goods smuggled along the Ecuadorian coast.
When Ecuador dollarized in 2000, the Ecuadorian coast, Quito's real estate and transportation industries, and even the artisanal and industrial fishing industries became a laundromat for Colombian drug traffickers. Chone was one of the places where shrimp farms created an economic boom, and they recruited most of the shrimp farm guards, who worked throughout the provinces of Esmeraldas and Manabí. Also on the coast, the cholos (fishermen of Manabí), heirs to the Manteño Huancavilca culture, the most important fishing culture in the South American Pacific, mastered the use of ocean currents. From June to December, when the Humboldt Cold Current arrived, they could reach Central America, carried by the current, and from December to May, they could reach Chile, carried by the El Niño Current. Following the Peace Agreement in Colombia during the Santos administration, the relationship between the Choneros, or fishermen of Manabí, and the FARC shifted to one with FARC remnants, such as the Oliver Simisterra Battalion, led by an Ecuadorian, Walter Arizala, known as Wacho, who kidnapped and murdered three journalists from the newspaper El Comercio during the Lenín Moreno administration. Moreno declared war on drug trafficking to please Donald Trump's first administration, even allowing him to reoccupy the Galapagos Islands and persecute Rafael Correa and his government. With the arrival of the pandemic and the economic crisis in Ecuador, other drug trafficking groups appeared. The Sinaloa Cartel linked up with the Choneros to introduce cocaine through the Pacific, the enemies of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Norte del Valle, The Jalisco Nueva Generacio Cartel managed to ally itself with the resilience of the army of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC, which in the Colombian Caribbean created the Gulf Cartel and others on the Ecuadorian border, in Ecuador they created the Cartel de los Lobos, which in addition to drug trafficking, undertook illegal gold mining, after gold was discovered in 24 of the 25 provinces of Ecuador. Meanwhile, in Guayaquil, the oligarchy, especially the smugglers, banana growers, and bankers, established ties with the Albanian Mafia, which even financed Guillermo Lasso's election campaign. They managed to turn the Port of Guayaquil and Ecuador into the leading exporter of cocaine to Europe and the country into one of the most violent in the world through new local cartels.
But this diversion of cocaine to Europe created a shortage in the United States and increased the price of cocaine. Within Ecuador, it gave rise to the internal armed conflict. Gangs emerge daily and are paid in cocaine, forcing them to sell it in small doses, mainly in the poor neighborhoods of the coast, especially in Guayaquil. These drug addicts extort, kidnap, or kill people to buy the drugs, allowing the United States to govern Ecuador.
