Ecuador: The fight against transnational crime demands a transnational response

The Government of Ecuador has found itself in the “strange position of inaugurating” the fight against a threat from the past that remained hidden, affirmed the nation’s president in his speech at the high-level debate of the General Assembly.

The risk that Guillermo Lasso referred to is formed by “dark actors who, instead of being fought, were quietly accommodated in the hope that no one would detect them” and added that his country “is engaged in a frontal fight, and therefore unprecedented, against drug trafficking”.

The Ecuadorian president stated, citing the latest world report on drugs released this year, that his country is the third nation in the world with the most cocaine seized.

Lasso pointed out that Ecuador increased “as never before” activities to achieve maximum seizures of narcotics and to dismantle the transnational gangs that transport them.

“We know that we are not the only ones who fight this monster, which, by the way, does not have a single face but several: such as human trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms trafficking and even illegal mining”, he detailed and He estimated between 1.6 and 2.2 trillion dollars the figures that transnational crime moves in a year. Figures that represent “tens of times” the total of Ecuador’s economy.

Transnational crime goes beyond the economic impact

However, he described as a mistake to quantify the consequences of transnational crime only in economic terms, and said that they must also be measured “in the irreparable losses, in the lives taken, in the truncated dreams, in the heartbroken cry of the families, but also in the fearful silence that it imposes on some communities.”

As an example, he cited the recent murder of a prosecutor in the heart of Guayaquil, who was “cowardly riddled with bullets by hit men from organized crime.”

“He was an official whose investigations included large cases involving transnational mafias. This assassination does not only mean that Ecuador loses a servant of the law, or that his children will grow up without a father, his assassination leaves us with an additional lesson: that the transnational crime requires a transnational solution”.

Consequently, he pointed out two possibilities: suffer separately from an enemy that acts in a coordinated manner within several countries flouting the laws or unite to defeat them.

“Ecuador, not only with record seizures but also with the sacrifice of its servers, is showing that it deserves such help, such international support, (…) and also help to strengthen the institutions where these servers are,” he requested.

Finally, he thanked the “overwhelming support” for the election of his country as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the period 2023-24.

“Our participation will take place in a context in which humanity is going through a stage of uncertainty and exceptional challenges, but always remain sure that, as we have done throughout this time, Ecuador will be there fulfilling its duty to the world,” he explained. .