Guayaquil (Ecuador) (AFP) โ Ecuadoran security forces mounted an operation against drug gangs Saturday overseen by ministers and with the founder of divisive US security contractor Blackwater Erik Prince in attendance, ahead of a knife-edge run-off election on April 13.
The operation, involving 650 police and military personnel, saw raids on homes and drug addiction rehab centers where residents were allegedly forced to extort others, said Pablo Davila, police chief in the country's largest city Guayaquil.
Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa announced during his election campaign a "strategic alliance" with the founder of Blackwater, whose mercenaries killed and injured dozens of civilians in Iraq, as he seeks to vanquish leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez.
Images of the operation showed Prince, a former Navy SEAL, accompanying Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo and Interior Minister John Reimberg while travelling in an armored vehicle.
The so-called "Security Block" -- made up of police, soldiers, and Prince -- "are already on the ground confronting narcoterrorism", the Defense Ministry said on social media.
Prince, whose company was renamed Academi after being involvement in a massacre in Baghdad, is close to US President Donald Trump, to whom he has offered help in the mass deportation of undocumented migrants.
He said in a clip posted by the Defense Ministry on X that "we are here to help combat the gangs and to provide the tools for the government to restore law and order, peace and prosperity."
Ecuador, through which 73 percent of the world's cocaine transits according to official figures, was until a few years ago a peaceful oasis between Colombia and Peru, the largest producers of the drug.
Facing surging drug violence, Noboa declared an internal armed conflict in 2024 and has kept the military on the streets since then.
After a record 47 murders per 100,000 people in 2023, the rate dropped to 38 in 2024.
This year started as the most violent in recent history with over 1,500 homicides in January and February alone.