While security crackdowns are targeting Ecuador’s gangs in the streets, recent cases show that high-level government corruption has also become a massive obstacle in the fight against organized crime.

On March 15, Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office presented evidence against 13 suspects in the so-called Metastasis Case (Caso Metástasis), which Attorney General Diana Salazar has described as “the largest in [Ecuador’s] history against corruption and drug trafficking.”

Suspects in the case include a former member of the National Assembly and a lead prosecutor for the province of Guayas, whose capital, Guayaquil, is central to the country’s drug trafficking economy.

The sweeping anti-corruption investigation is targeting a drug trafficking network once headed by Leandro Norero, a top ally of the Lobos gang before his murder in 2022. It was first announced to the public with raids of Ecuador’s Judicial Council, a body with the power to suspend and remove judges, in December 2023. Prosecutors initially targeted 30 people linked to Norero’s network, but the number of defendants has now reached 52.

Prosecutors allege that officials from Ecuador’s judiciary, legislature, and security forces received bribes through Norero via his lawyers and other intermediaries in exchange for helping him maintain his criminal empire while behind bars.

In addition, corrupt judges allegedly delayed money laundering cases against Norero’s siblings after receiving bribes, while police and prosecutors on Norero’s payroll passed him information about law enforcement crackdowns both inside and outside prison.

Norero also had links as high as the former president of the Judicial Council, who “planned to buy the decisions of the national magistrates” to achieve a favorable decision in a money laundering case against Norero’s brother, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

Metastasis’ findings have spawned other investigations. On March 5, the attorney general’s office announced Caso Purga (Purge Case), based on texts seized from the phone of a Metastasis suspect. Prosecutors are investigating a dozen judicial officials and lawyers associated with the judicial system in the province of Guayas, for links to organized crime and drug trafficking.

The counter-corruption offensive comes as President Daniel Noboa’s war on gangs moves into its third month. Noboa’s militarized response is widely popular and has resulted in a countrywide reduction in homicides. Still, concerns persist about criminality, especially in Guayaquil, where reports of extortion and kidnappings have dramatically increased this year, according to police statistics accessed by Ecuavisa.

InSight Crime Analysis

While most eyes remain on the fight on the streets, the Ecuadorian government’s real battle may be for control of the state.

Corruption has always existed in Ecuador, but recent cases signal an alarming escalation in its prominence, according to Melania Carrión, a security consultant and former government official specializing in prisons.

“Before, there were officials linked to the drug issue,” she told InSight Crime.
“But there was still respect for state institutions.”

In recent years, elements of the navy, police, and prisons authority have been accused of helping gangs move drugs, access arms, and maintain their criminal enterprises from behind bars. Corruption has also limited the impact of homicide investigations, while killings in the country have jumped from 5.7 per 100,000 in 2018 to 44.5 in 2023.

As part of an attempt to address corruption, Noboa announced the creation of a joint financial crime investigation unit on March 7. The measure will increase collaboration within Ecuador’s government to fight money laundering and other white-collar crimes. He also proposed a constitutional amendment that seeks to close a prominent legal loophole, which allows criminals to stall their trials. Ecuadorians will vote on the amendment at a referendum on April 21.

But even with these measures, government corruption in Ecuador remains a formidable obstacle to reversing the advances of criminal groups. Record quantities of cocaine are flowing through Ecuador, and InSight Crime estimates that just the Colombian cocaine entering the country may be worth nearly one billion dollars to criminal groups helping to store and transport it through the country. Lucrative extortion, kidnapping, and drug dealing markets further bolster gang coffers, providing criminal groups with the means to bribe officials and sometimes even bring them into their fold.

(Photo credit: Xavier Granja Cedeño – Cancillería Ecuador)

This article, written by Gavin Voss, was originally published by InSight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.