War / Americas
Colombia Insurgency
De la Espriella's security-first government launches a US-backed offensive as armed groups near 27,000 fighters and the Chocó earthquake strains.
Ecuador
Ecuador is at war with its own cartels.
In January 2024, President Daniel Noboa declared an "internal armed conflict" and designated more than 20 gangs as terrorist organizations, deploying the military nationwide after gunmen seized a live television broadcast in Guayaquil. The fight traces to 2021, when prison massacres killed over 300 inmates and exposed how thoroughly groups like Los Choneros, Lobos, and Los Tiguerones had captured the state's institutions. No foreign government backs either side. The gangs are sustained by Colombian and Mexican cartel supply chains, FARC-EMC dissidents to the north and Sinaloa and CJNG networks moving cocaine through Pacific ports.
A country once considered Latin America's safe corner has become one of its deadliest.
Colombia's inauguration of de la Espriella and the simultaneous launch of Plan Patriot 2.0 represent the sharpest external shock to Ecuador's gang war in years, reversing the negotiated posture that allowed armed groups to nearly double in combatant strength from roughly 13,000 to 27,000.
It matters because the war continues to tie down the main belligerents, pull in outside backers, and shape the security balance across Americas.
Weekly net escalation pressure, last 90 days
Plan Patriot 2.0 and the U.S. security package create real short-term supply-chain disruption for Ecuadorian gangs but do not resolve structural fragmentation; past 48 groups.
The unclaimed drone strikes on Ecuadorean fishing vessels establish a precedent for deniable lethal maritime enforcement in the region, with no legal framework, no accountability mechanism.
The Chocó earthquake is an immediate stress test for de la Espriella's government at the outset of its term: Chocó is among Colombia's least-served regions, a key trafficking corridor.
GANGS
Colombian cartel supply chains (FARC-EMC, Gulf Clan), Mexican cartel connections (CJNG, Sinaloa).
US
counter-narcotics cooperation. No direct state sponsor.
War / Americas
De la Espriella's security-first government launches a US-backed offensive as armed groups near 27,000 fighters and the Chocó earthquake strains.
War / Americas
Cartel fragmentation deepens as U.S. autonomous warfare infrastructure locks in hemispheric enforcement without fleet rotation costs.
Colombian FARC-EMC supply channels sustain cross-border trafficking and provide weapons and logistics to Ecuadorian armed groups along the northern border.
Gulf Clan cross-border logistics support gang financing and supply chains in Ecuador's northern border zones and remain unaddressed by any political settlement.
Sinaloa Cartel networks coordinate Ecuadorian gang access to Pacific cocaine export flows and embed in port transit infrastructure as a durable upstream node.
CJNG franchise nodes operate within Ecuadorian port and overland transit networks to manage northbound drug shipments toward U.S. and European markets.
Illegal gold mining networks function as a structurally independent criminal financing layer for armed groups across Ecuador's Amazon.