Inside the war against Ecuador's black arms market By Reuters

By Alexandra Valence

QUITO (Reuters) – The weapon – a 9-millimeter pistol – set off a violent path, even by the standards of one of Ecuador's most dangerous neighborhoods, the Nueva Prosperina neighborhood of Guayaquil.

Bullet casings from the gun, found at the scene of 27 separate violent incidents, have been linked to 34 deaths, according to a police forensic unit. A forensics official told Reuters that authorities believed the gun was still in circulation.

The devastation attributed to a single gun illustrates the challenges President Daniel Noboa faces in quelling an explosion of violent crime and homicides since 2020, fueled by a sharp increase in smuggled guns during the same period, many of them from the United States. Ecuador recorded 7,994 murders last year, a nearly sixfold increase since 2020.

Reuters was the first media outlet to gain access to police bullet tracing efforts, a key part of Ecuador's fight against crime. Tracing the origins of bullets and guns could help authorities choke off trafficking routes and establish a forensic history of illegal weapons for future prosecutions, police said.

But it's slow work.

Of the more than 40,000 weapons seized since 2019, only 900 have been recovered, Major Efrain Arguello, who heads a national forensic investigations unit, told Reuters.

The gun used in Nueva Prosperina may belong to, or have been rented from, five rival drug gangs fighting for control of the neighborhood, Arguello said.

Police are investigating murders, robberies and other violent incidents linked to the same weapon.

“One weapon linked to 30 crimes means that there is not only an increase in trafficking, but also in the circulation or internal sales of illicit weapons,” said Renato Rivera, director of the research group of the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.

The Pacific port city of Guayaquil is a drug trafficking hub and the scene of turf wars between Mexican, Albanian and foreign cartels that have led to a sharp rise in homicides.

In January, Noboa designated 22 gangs – including the five operating in Nueva Prosperina – as terrorist organizations.

Since taking office last November, after being elected to complete his predecessor's term, Noboa has increased funding for security forces by 6.6 percent to $3.52 billion.

Equipment shortage

But two senior police officials told Reuters that Ecuador was struggling to stem arms trafficking routes from the United States, Peru and other countries in the region due to a lack of funding, forensic equipment and qualified personnel.

Ecuador has only eight microscopes in a country of 17 million people for bullet tracing, police said, and 247 trained technicians.

“We're making do with what we have,” Arguello said.

In a small room in the Quito police forensics building, technician Jhony Tapia looked through the city's only ballistics microscope at casings and bullets from five guns used to kill four people at a bar in Amazonia (NASDAQ:).

Distinctive markings on the firing pins of individual firearms, visible under a high-powered microscope, allow technicians to match bullets to firearms or to other bullets fired from the same weapon.

“The firing pin leaves a more effective trace (for tracking) than a fingerprint,” said Lt. Col. Benjamin Molina, head of the National Police's arms and explosives trafficking unit.

Tapia will spend the next few hours studying 126 shell casings of different sizes, he told Reuters.

Its findings will be compared to a national police database of bullets and casings.

Finding a match is easier if police also recover the gun, allowing technicians like Tapia to compare the markings on the barrel, called rifling, with the marks left on the bullets.

The seized weapons are checked against international databases managed by the United States and Interpol.

Forensic staff did not say whether the weapons involved in the Amazon case had been recovered.

Unlike neighboring Colombia, which has struggled for decades with drug trafficking networks, Ecuador was until recently considered one of the safest countries in Latin America – a popular destination for foreign tourists and retirees.

But after increased drug crackdowns along Colombia's Pacific coast, traffickers changed routes to Ecuador and violent crime soared.

Ecuadorian police have identified seven gun trafficking routes, Noboa's office said.

Three cross overland into Peru while a fourth route enters northern Ecuador, near the border with Colombia, although police have not said whether the weapons originated from there.

ARMS TRAFFICKING ROUTES FROM THE UNITED STATES

Three other arms trafficking routes come from the United States: one by air from Miami to the coast of Manta, another via Lima and then by land, and a third by sea via the famous Galapagos Islands (NASDAQ:), police and Noboa's office said.

Police said they also found gun parts shipped via courier services from Miami or produced using 3D printing.

In April, police seized a 3D printer in the coastal province of Manabi that they said was being used to make up to 20 gun parts.

Police would not share estimates on the prices of illegal weapons, but the Ecuadorian Observatory of Organized Crime said Glocks and other pistols sell for up to $4,000 new and $500 used.

According to the research group, rifles can cost between $8,000 and $15,000, while weapons made with 3D printers cost $3,000. There is also a market for homemade weapons, he added.

Police seized nearly 10,000 firearms across Ecuador last year, according to police data, more than half of which were revolvers or pistols, almost double the number of seizures in 2019 .

At least a quarter of the traced weapons were acquired legally in the United States, but they generally have no record of legal entry into Ecuador, police said.

Authorities also traced at least 36 weapons that were legally exported from the United States to Peru and smuggled into Ecuador, said Molina, head of the arms trafficking unit.

Peruvian authorities told Reuters they raided three companies selling weapons on the black market in March and criminally charged 18 people.

Molina said police were also investigating the possibility that Ecuadorian gangs could trade cocaine for weapons from Mexican cartels.

Since 2022, Ecuador has strengthened its cooperation with the United States to combat arms trafficking, obtaining access to the eTrace Internet database of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Last year, the ATF searched more than 500 firearms seized in Ecuador, the State Department and ATF said in a joint statement, compared to fewer than 100 in 2021.

Yet some analysts say that without a specific plan to combat arms trafficking, gun and ammunition seizures will remain a secondary accessory to drug seizures.

“There is no intelligence oversight process to track suppliers and systems and get ahead of arms trafficking,” said former Army intelligence chief and security analyst Mario Pazmino.

Noboa's office said security forces have had a number of successes against arms traffickers, including the seizure of 2,291 weapons since the president declared war on gangs in January.