This week witnessed Ecuador’s descent into violent chaos, bringing the Andean nation of 18 million to the edge of civil war. Although the once-tranquil country has seen rising violence, including the assassination of a presidential candidate last summer, events unfolding in the new year reveal that Ecuador is in danger of state collapse and capture by drug cartels.
The mayhem erupted with the Jan. 7 jailbreak of one of the country’s top mafia bosses, Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, better known as Fito, who has headed the Los Choneros cartel since 2020. Although the gangs largely run Ecuador’s prisons by themselves, Fito knew he was about to be transferred to a different prison, so he escaped. Riots and worse followed Fito’s breakout, especially in Guayaquil, the port city where the narco boss had been incarcerated. Guayaquil is Ecuador’s biggest city and not coincidentally the hub of the country’s cocaine exports.
