Six men were found dead this Thursday in Ecuador near where three weeks earlier the country’s largest drug seizure to date occurred, uncovering 21.5 tons of cocaine stored underground at a rural estate.
The bodies were discovered with gunshot wounds beside a stream just meters from a rural road that runs through an agricultural area linking the towns of Vinces and Ventanas in the tropical Los Ríos province, according to a police colonel named William Calle.
The six victims were relatives and friends who had traveled in the same vehicle after gathering at a home in Ventanas canton, relatives told investigators. Police believe the killings happened at another location since the area where the bodies appeared shows no ballistic evidence, and the vehicle has not been located. “We are investigating and will pursue every lead,” Calle remarked, noting that there is no evidence tying this crime to the drug seizure without further proof.
This massacre unfolded amid what the administration has labeled a domestic “internal armed conflict” declared by President Daniel Noboa at the start of the year to curb organized crime. The measure aims to halt a surge in violence from criminal groups, which has included the seizure of a television channel by armed forces and concurrent prison uprisings where 200 inmates were freed.
With Noboa’s declaration, authorities designated twenty-two criminal networks as terrorist-like non-state actors. These groups are primarily involved in trafficking narcotics and are linked to international cartels in Mexico and Europe, facilitating the flow of cocaine grown mostly in Colombia toward North America and beyond, through alliances with global criminal networks.
The rise of these cartels, capable of controlling entire prisons, has helped push Ecuador into one of Latin America’s most violent regions, recording a homicide rate of about 45 per 100,000 residents in 2023, a figure cited by security briefings and local authorities (Source: Police press notes; regional crime data).