2024-01-18 05:01:00
The Ecuadorian prosecutor who was investigating the assault by an armed group on a television station in Guayaquil was shot dead this Wednesday in what marks a bloody escalation of the war that the country is experiencing with drug-criminal gangs. Prosecutor César Suárez, who was in charge of different cases related to drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime, was murdered by a group of unknown people in a sector of northern Guayaquil, when he was driving his car.
The State Attorney General, Diana Salazar, regretted the crime and declared: “Faced with the murder of our colleague César Suárez, I am going to be emphatic: organized crime groups, criminals, terrorists will not stop our commitment to Ecuadorian society.” Salazar called on law enforcement to “guarantee the safety” of officials, as well as the Judicial Council to authorize judicial hearings carried out by prosecutors from the units against organized crime “to be carried out electronically.” “.
Prosecutor Suárez was in charge of determining which criminal group was behind the spectacular shooting in the middle of the broadcast of a program on the TC Televisión channel. Suárez was also in charge of the case against Daniel Salcedo, a fugitive from Ecuadorian justice accused in corruption cases and linked to drug trafficking who was arrested on Tuesday in Panama. The Quito newspaper Primicias recalled that he “was also” in charge of the investigation of the fraud involving the funds of the Police Social Security Institute (Isspol).
Local media broadcast images of Suárez’s truck with several bullet holes in the driver’s window on Avenida del Bombero, in Guayaquil. Apparently he was heading from the judicial police to the Albán Borja justice unit for a hearing. In an interview given 24 hours before the crime to the newspaper El Universo, Suárez confirmed that he did not have police protection despite the fact that he had interrogated the 13 detained for the raid on the television channel days ago.
A police official assured the AFP agency that “the investigative units are carrying out the relevant investigations to find those responsible” in the country’s main port, the center of drug trafficking operations. Images of the alleged vehicle that was used to commit Suárez’s murder were spread on social networks, which was abandoned and set on fire shortly after.
Record of violence in the country
The attack against the TC channel was one of the first criminal acts that Ecuador suffered after the escape of the powerful Adolfo Macías or “Fito”, head of the country’s main gang, confirmed on January 8. The armed group that attacked the canal allegedly belonged to the criminal gang “Los Tiguerones”, according to the police. That day a group of hooded men threatened journalists and other workers with guns, rifles and grenades.
Faced with the crisis unleashed at that time, President Daniel Noboa declared an “internal armed conflict”, called criminal gangs “terrorists” and deployed thousands of soldiers. In several prisons, inmates held more than 100 prison officials until their release on Saturday. Prosecutor Salazar reported death threats from Los Lobos, one of the main criminal organizations.
Ecuador was for many years a country safe from drug trafficking, but it has been transformed into a new bastion of drug trafficking to the United States and Europe with gangs fighting for control of the territory and united in their war against the State, especially in the port of Guayaquil. In the last five years, the homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants went from 6 to 46 in 2023 and the internal war hits rock bottom as it did in Colombia in the last century, with the additional ingredient of burning prisons.
How to finance the fight against drugs?
The Citizen Revolution bench in the National Assembly of Ecuador proposed applying a tax on extraordinary profits to finance the fight undertaken by the government against organized crime. The party led by former president Rafael Correa also proposed increasing the rate of the foreign currency outflow tax (ISD) from 3.5 to 5 percent. The Association of Private Banks (Asobanca) of Ecuador rejected both proposals.
The conflict between the banking sector and Correismo arose after President Noboa sent a bill to the National Assembly that seeks to finance the so-called “war against terrorism,” as he defines organized crime groups. This project includes a proposal to increase the value added tax (VAT) from 12 to 15 percent, something that bothers the progressive groups in the Legislature, who consider that the weight of the measure falls on the poor sectors and the class. half.
The Citizen Revolution movement warned about the “exorbitant profits” of banking in recent years and formulated its thesis that “those who have the most pay the most.” A tribute to the extraordinary profits achieved in recent years by the private financial system” would allow “to provide a respite to the battered economies of the majority of Ecuadorians”, subjected since 2020, the year of the covid-19 pandemic, to a series of tax measures. Parliament, where the ruling party is a minority but has already approved the president’s initiatives, has 30 days to rule on the proposal to increase VAT.
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