Mexican Cartels Are Turning Once-Peaceful #Ecuador Into a Narco War Zone
▻https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgwxyn/ecuador-mexico-drug-war-cocaine
A half dozen major gangs in Ecuador are now moving cocaine for international drug cartels. The Choneros, Gangsters, and Big Feet (the “Patones”) work for Sinaloa, while the Tiguerones, Wolves and Chonekillers are allied with Jalisco, according to Ecuadorian authorities and drug traffickers. The Alligators work for the Albanian mafia, one of Europe’s most powerful criminal organizations that has also fueled bloodshed in Ecuador.
The violence has triggered a mass exodus of Ecuadorians heading north toward the U.S. border. In just the first two months of 2023, immigration officials apprehended Ecuadorians at the southwest border 16,080 times—a stunning number considering that for most of the past two decades, fewer than 3,000 Ecuadorians arrived per year. There are now more Ecuadorians arriving at the U.S. border than Haitians or Salvadorans, and they are the number one nationality being detained by Mexican authorities.