Ecuador: aspirants for mayor would have links with drug traffickers

By Mamela Fiallo

Narco-regimes became a South American reality hand in hand with 21st century socialism. Where they are not in power, they aim to recover it from the sectional elections, at the provincial level.

Ecuador is precisely in the final stretch of local elections. Citizens must elect their respective mayors, councilors and prefects (provincial governors). Among them are several applicants who have ties to drug trafficking and/or organized crime.

Leading the way is the correísmo stronghold, Manabí, Ecuador’s largest province. There a person persecuted by Interpol for his links with drug trafficking, Leandro Norero, would have laundered money with public works.

He links it directly to the mayor of Manta, Agustín Intriago, who is seeking re-election in the site that is the most affluent port in the South American nation.

THE NARCO WOULD HAVE LAUNDERED MONEY WITH PUBLIC WORKS

Between May and August 2021, Norero was awarded two contracts totaling US$3.5 million for road construction and paving. The companies benefiting from the contracts are Avilmat and Coralva.

Coralva in turn transferred to the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht around US$400,000. It is not a minor fact, since Odebrecht was part of a corruption network at the continental level that uncovered scandals for millions in bribe payments.

Norero was assassinated in October 2022 during one of the prison riots that claimed the lives of hundreds of prisoners.

But he did not bury his ties to the mayor. Intriago came to power with no prior experience in the public sector. His initial link with Norero is through “Argenis R.”, who was the legal representative of a company incorporated by Intriago. Then “Argenis R.” he would have founded his own company and sold him the shares of him Norero and his partner.

Also in Manabí there would be ill-gotten money from the Ecuadorian drug lord Enrique Portocarrero. He was arrested in Spain, when he was traveling to the World Cup in Qatar. Links have been traced to Mexican cartels in Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación.

According to the complaint from the legislators of the South American country, he was also “financier of Ecuadorian criminal gangs, such as Los Choneros and Los Gansters.”

Along with his network, they would have supported four candidates, also in the province of Esmeraldas.

The Anti-Corruption Parliamentary Front filed complaints in this regard. The legislators of said entity asked the Prosecutor’s Office to speed up their investigations, since the elections are on February 5, 2023.

The largest province is also home to Romel Cedeño. He is a candidate for re-election as mayor of Tosagua. Police reports link him to the construction of clandestine tracks in Manabí.

Curiously, he came to power with the current government party. But after revealing his record, he entered the socialist list for re-election with Revolución Ciudadana. Cedeño was prosecuted for organized crime.

“SHE ACTS ALMOST LIKE PABLO ESCOBAR”

In the province of Esmeraldas, the candidate for mayor of San Lorenzo Adis Solís, is the candidate of the alliance between Revolución Ciudadana (of Correísmo) and the Amigo formation for the mayoralty of the canton. This canton is on the border with Colombia. Therefore, it is key to drug trafficking. In fact, FARC dissidents operated there, such as the Oliver Sinisterra front.

Solís was part of a “corruption network that irregularly delivered Ecuadorian ID cards to FARC citizens and soccer players.” This is how the complaints from the legislators of the Anti-Corruption Parliamentary Front point out. Well, before being a mayoral candidate, Solís was an official of the Civil Registry.

In addition, legislator Fernando Villavicencio points out that Solís’s brother-in-law was captured with several kilograms of cocaine. He regrets that seven complaints against the candidate were filed with the Prosecutor’s Office, but they were unsuccessful. One of the complaints contains a photograph showing wads of cash in Solís’ home. And it is not a minor fact that this lady also worked in the Prosecutor’s Office.

“When an inhabitant of San Lorenzo asks her for a favor because she passed something on to him, she acts almost like Pablo Escobar, and she goes and solves his problems,” Villavicencio says.

Within the network of operations of the drug lord Portocarrero, from Esmeralda by birth, he would have controlled the cantons of Atacames, Muisne and Pedernales for the shipment of drugs.

The businessmen César and “Walter C.”, who operated under his command, would have made public their support for various candidates. Ana Caidedo, candidate for mayor of Rioverde for the Democratic Center, which is Correísmo after the break with Lenin Moreno; Miguel Ruiz, candidate for mayor of Esmeraldas from the same party; and Tairon Quintero, candidate for mayor of Muisne for the Democratic Left.

According to the legislators, Ruiz is the cousin of “Kevin Q”, “a man of trust” of alias ‘Negro Willy’, leader of Los Tiguerones, another criminal gang.

NORMALIZING CRIME, A CORREÍSTA LEGACY

The normalization of delinquency and organized crime is a legacy of the socialist period in the country. He left as a legacy one of the financiers of works in the public sector: Leandro Norero, known as “El Patron”. He was the leader of the armed gang of Los Ñetas. He was part of the peace agreement orchestrated by Rafael Correa between that gang and the Latin Kings. There is even a photo in which Norero appears together with Ricardo Patiño, then defense minister. He was photographed alongside several key members of the regime, including Correa himself.

Both President Guillermo Lasso and the Minister of the Interior, Juan Zapata, assured that there is “strong” evidence that would be presented in the coming weeks. Although they have not yet presented them and the elections are approaching.

But it is fair to say that, even if the irregularities of the candidates are demonstrated, it will be difficult to invalidate their candidacies. They already appear on the ballot papers. And the National Electoral Council (CNE) does not have a legal framework to combat the illegal origin of campaign contributions.

Now it remains for the fourth power to make these irregularities visible so that citizens vote in an informed manner. In the last presidential election, both in the Amazon border region and in the port areas, where there are more links to drug trafficking, socialism obtained more votes. The working Ecuador, on the other hand, did not give them the vote.

With information from Gaceta de la Iberosfera