Ecuador is a country on the Pacific coast of South America with a dollarised economy. Historically peaceful, it has in recent years been transformed by drug-trafficking and the violence around it.
Ecuador has shifted from a transit point into a centre for cocaine production, processing, storage and distribution. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's 2023 "Global Report on Cocaine" found coca cultivation and cocaine seizures in Ecuador growing exponentially, and described a "drastic" increase in homicide rates mostly linked to the drug trade. Traffickers from the Balkans and Italian crime groups have set up operations in Ecuador to secure supply lines to European markets.
Transnational criminal networks forged strong links with local outfits, which fought each other brutally for control of new routes and markets. These groups permeated society, corrupting the administration of justice, security agencies and high-ranking elected officials, and contaminating swathes of the economy including export sectors. High-level corruption cases—given names such as Metástasis, Purga and Plaga—revealed links between criminal groups and politicians, journalists, lawyers, judicial officials and former legislators.
The cocaine-export routes shifted to Ecuador to escape increased security at Colombian ports. Ecuador's vast banana exports offered an ideal smuggling route—gangsters hide hundreds of tonnes of cocaine in the crates that shift some 600m bananas through Ecuador's ports every week. They also launch 20-metre-long narco-submarines stuffed with cocaine from the mangrove forests of Colombia and Brazil and pilot them to Spain and America. President Daniel Noboa says gangs move about $30bn-worth of drugs through Ecuador every year, equivalent to a quarter of the country's GDP.
Diana Salazar, who served as attorney-general from 2019 to 2025, led courageous prosecutions against gangsters and corrupt politicians, focusing on seizing illicit funds and building cross-border judicial co-operation with America, Britain and Canada.
Six years ago Ecuador was about as safe as the United States; it now has the world's highest murder rate, as cocaine trafficking has shifted to Ecuadorean ports from more heavily policed ones in Colombia. In 2019 the murder rate was below seven per 100,000, similar to that of the United States. By 2023 it had surged to 45, making Ecuador the most violent country in mainland Latin America. Judges and prosecutors, especially those in remote areas who handle cases relating to organised crime, lack adequate physical protection. At least 15 have been killed since 2022. Between 2020 and 2022 there were just three convictions for money-laundering.
Ecuador and Mexico communicate only through Swiss intermediaries, after Ecuador raided the Mexican embassy in Quito in 2024 to seize a former vice-president being sheltered there, who had been convicted of corruption. The two countries' gangs are closely linked.
More than a dozen islands, formed millions of years ago, rise out of the Pacific 1,000km from Ecuador's coast. Since 1959, 97% of the islands' surface area has been designated a national park. UNESCO lists the Galápagos as a world heritage site; it placed them on its endangered list in 2007, citing invasive species, illegal fishing and uncontrolled development, and removed them in 2010 after the government capped visitor numbers and tightened inspections.
In 2024 the archipelago received 279,300 visitors—ten times the number of locals and six times the tally in 1993. Entry fees, unchanged since 1998, rose that year from $6 to $30 for Ecuadorians and doubled to $200 for foreigners. Park revenues reached a record $22.1m in 2024, 23% higher than in 2023; officials expect takings to reach $39.6m in 2025. UNESCO has praised the fee rise as "effective". More than four-fifths of Galapagueños depend on tourism to cover living costs, which are around 80% higher than on the mainland.
Daniel Noboa, Harvard-educated, was first elected president in October 2023 and re-elected in April 2025 on a promise to defeat the criminal gangs. He has designated 22 gangs as "terrorist organisations", deployed the army to the streets and is building mega-prisons. His allies dominate the National Assembly and the leftist opposition is in disarray. On January 21st 2026 Mr Noboa announced a 30% "security tariff" on Colombian imports, sparking a trade war, as he pressured Gustavo Petro to take firmer action on counter-narcotics.
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