How a Peaceful Country Became a Gold Rush State for Drug Cartels

 

"A total of 210 tons of drugs seized in a single year, a record. At least 4,500 killings last year, also a record. Children recruited by gangs. Prisons as hubs for crime. Neighborhoods consumed by criminal feuds. And all this chaos financed by powerful outsiders with deep pockets and lots of experience in the global drug business.

Ecuador, on South America’s western edge, has in just a few years become the drug trade’s gold rush state, with major cartels from as far as Mexico and Albania joining forces with prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history."

read report by Julie Turkewitz

How a Peaceful Country Became a Gold Rush State for Drug Cartels – DNyuz