Ecuador says local cartel trade worth $30bn a year

By AFP

Ecuador's president admitted Tuesday that cartels and gangs move $30 billion worth of drugs, arms and other illicit goods through his country a year -- about a quarter of the country's GDP.

In a bid to underscore the severity of the once peaceful country's violent security crisis, Daniel Noboa made the startling revelation during an interview with state television.

"That's a lot of dough, a lot of cash," said the 37-year-old Miami-born son of a banana billionaire.

The sum is the equivalent of 24 percent of Ecuador's GDP or the 2023 net profit of US online giant Amazon, one of the world's largest companies.

Drug lords are fighting tooth and nail for control of smuggling routes that take cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru and through Ecuadoran ports to markets in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Noboa faces a tough April election runoff against a strong leftist opponent, with voters ready to offer their verdict on his "iron fist" approach to security.

Noboa won this month's first round by a razor thin margin -- 44.17 percent versus Luisa Gonzalez' 43.97 percent, according to a final tally published Tuesday.

The tallies show he lost heavily in coastal areas most hit by violence.

By declaring a state of emergency and deploying the army to prisons and the streets to hinder gangs, Noboa succeeded in bringing down the sky-high murder rate last year.

But the start of this year has seen another spike in violence and growing dissatisfaction with the state of the economy.

More than a dozen people were killed in the country's largest city, Guayaquil, over the weekend.

On Friday hitmen mowed down a cartel-busting special forces colonel.

Facing the fresh wave of violence, Noboa replaced his interior minister.