Over the past years, Ecuador has become a major battlefield in the transnational drug war. On August 9, presidential hopeful Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign rally in Quito. Villavicencio was a member of the National Assembly and spoke out against organized crime and corruption. His murder marked the culmination of Ecuador’s worsening security crisis and of an unprecedented cycle of violence unleashed by criminal organizations operating in the country. Ecuador was once one of Latin America’s most peaceful countries. Between 2020 and 2022, the country’s homicide rate jumped by 245 percent. Ecuador sits in a strategic geopolitical position for the global cocaine trade. It is nestled between the world’s two biggest cocaine suppliers, Colombia and Peru. With cocaine production booming in Colombia, national gangs and foreign drug cartels are increasingly turning Ecuador into an international cocaine transit hub.

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