In Guayaquil, a humid city framed by green hills, with a metropolitan population of 3.5 million, rivalries among criminal groups have spilled into the street, producing a horrific and public style of violence clearly meant to induce fear and exert control.
Television news stations are regularly filled with stories of beheadings, car bombs, police assassinations, young men hanging from bridges and children gunned down outside their homes or schools.
“It’s so painful,” said one community leader, who asked not to be named for safety reasons. The leader’s neighborhood has been transformed in recent years, with children as young as 13 forcibly recruited to criminal groups. “They are threatened,” the leader said. “‘You don’t want to join? We will kill your family.’”
In response, Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, a conservative, has declared several states of emergency, sending the military into the streets to guard schools and businesses.
More recently, Los Choneros and others have found another source of income: extortion. Shopkeepers, community leaders, even water providers, trash collectors and schools are forced to pay a tax to criminal groups in exchange for their safety.
Inside prisons, extortion has been common for years.
On a recent morning in Guayaquil, Katarine, 30, a mother of three, sat on a curb outside the country’s largest prison. Her husband, a banana farmer, had been taken into custody five days before, she said, following a street fight.
He called her from prison, she said, asking that she wire money to a bank account belonging to a gang. If she didn’t pay, he explained, he would be beaten, possibly electrocuted.
Julie Turkewitz and Victor Moriyama
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