2023-10-06 09:56:00
Thefts in production areas, armed attacks at sea, extortion…: in Ecuador, organized crime is damaging the shrimp sector, of which the country is the world’s leading exporter.
One in five shrimp served on the world’s tables comes from the country of 17 million inhabitants. In 2022, “rose gold”, which represents 22% of the country’s exports, has dethroned bananas, another flagship product, reaching a record of nearly 7.3 billion dollars, according to official figures.
During the first eight months of the year, 64 violent attacks and thefts, at sea or on land, caused more than 50 victims in the country, including two deaths, according to the National Chamber of Aquaculture (CNA), which suspects under-reporting for fear of retaliation.
The loot is then resold on local markets or to unscrupulous traders who reintegrate it into the export chain.
According to the CNA, which brings together more than 4,000 shrimp producers and exporters, the attacks occur “always in the same places”, namely around the Gulf of Guayaquil (southwest), in the province of Guayas, which has become the epicenter in the country of violence linked to drug trafficking with dismembered corpses hanging from bridges, massacres between prisoners and even kidnappings.
In April, one day apart, two attacks left seven people injured.
In the first, men armed with rifles shot at point-blank range six ranchers who were leaving Puerto Roma, one of the worst-hit places in the Gulf, on a boat. They stole the cargo and fled by speedboat.
In the second, the driver of a truck transporting shrimp was seriously injured after being intercepted on a highway by armed men who stole the load. Thefts also occur in production areas.
“When we unload the goods on land, we are constantly on the alert, trying to identify risky places where we could be attacked,” a worker at the site told AFP, on condition of anonymity. area, in Puna, an archipelago in the Gulf of Guayaquil.
“The Navy patrols, but does not dare approach shrimp farms,” assures this 51-year-old man, including 25 in aquaculture, witness to an attack on which he prefers not to dwell.
For “security reasons”, Navy officials refused to allow the AFP to accompany them on a sea patrol.
-“we yield”-
“It’s not every day that there are thefts, but when there are, it affects the production of an entire week,” explains Kléber Siguenza, a breeder from the province of Guayas.
Despite the installation of a video surveillance system, he explains that he fears a kidnapping, after that of a breeder in June in Duran, a town near the port of Guayaquil.
According to the CNA, shrimp farmers will spend $100 million on safety measures this year, making them less competitive with rivals like India and Vietnam.
“We continue to be victims, on a daily basis, of delinquency better armed than the police”, underlines to AFP the president of the CNA, José Antonio Camposano, denouncing in a press release a “total absence of security forces” in certain areas.
Edison Brito, president of the Chamber of Shrimp Producers in the province of El Oro, neighboring that of Guayas, denounces the extortion suffered by companies in exchange for “so-called security”.
“We are giving in because there is no support from the Navy (…) We have no choice,” he assures, recognizing his helplessness.
06/10/2023 09:54:48 – Guayaquil (Ecuador) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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