How to curb organised crime without shredding civil rights
Ecuador is a test case in the fight against global gangs
The gangsters are in their pomp. From the mangrove forests of Colombia and Brazil they launch 20-metre-long narco-submarines stuffed with cocaine and pilot them to Spain and America. They hide hundreds of tonnes of the drug in the crates that shift some 600m bananas through Ecuador’s ports every week. Across Latin America they rely on pliant judges and politicians, bought or terrorised. Cocaine production is soaring and illegal gold-mining is booming. Bodies are piling up amid a struggle to control billion-dollar businesses.
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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Busting gangs, keeping the law”
Leaders
June 14th 2025- The world must escape the manufacturing delusion
- Israel has taken an audacious but terrifying gamble
- When a radical performance artist has command of an army
- How to curb organised crime without shredding civil rights
- In the age of AI, Apple needs to open up
- Rachel Reeves’s big-government rhetoric is a worrying sign for Britain
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