The Anatomy of Violence in Durán, Ecuador

Homicides, many of them in public areas and with firearms, are a manifestation of increasing conflict between criminal groups in Durán. In this chapter, we will use data from Ecuador’s Ministry of the Interior to first explore the main features of homicides in Ecuador. We will then conduct an in-depth analysis of homicides in Durán and how they compare to the murders in the rest of the country. Finally, we will explore how criminal groups use violence against other criminal groups, government officials, and security forces, to further entrench themselves in Durán.

Homicides in Ecuador – An Overview

The explosion of homicides in Durán in the last few years can only be understood in the larger Ecuadorian context. Homicide trends in Ecuador since 2010 have experienced two major phases. In the first phase, the country’s homicide rate dropped significantly from 18 per 100,000 in 2010 to 6 per 100,000 in 2017, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior. The national reduction in homicides during this period overlapped with an ambitious gang-pacification program launched by former President Rafael Correa’s administration in 2007.

The government promoted the program by encouraging gang members, among them the Latin Kings and the Ñetas, to “reintegrate” into society through job training, small businesses, and even positions in the government. In Durán, for example, dozens of Latin Kings began working with Alexandra Arce’s government (2014-2019) in manual labor, cleaning, and administrative roles, the former mayor told InSight Crime.

*This article is part of an investigation exploring criminal dynamics in Durán, Ecuador’s primary organized crime hotspot and one of the world’s most violent cities in 2023. Read the other chapters of the investigation here or download the full report (PDF) here.

While the programs played a role in reducing homicide rates in the early and mid-2010s, the seeds for Ecuador’s subsequent violence were already being planted. An economic recession beginning in 2014 drained national and local government budgets and sapped the political will to continue funding social programs like the gang-pacification initiative. Resources for the penitentiary system also dwindled for the already corrupt, poorly-funded, poorly-trained, and vastly understaffed prison authority. Concurrently, cocaine flowing through Ecuador multiplied, and local Ecuadorian traffickers began asserting a more prominent role in the trade. The pandemic exacerbated the country’s economic problems and further exposed its institutional shortcomings.

This context set the stage for the second phase when homicide rates in Ecuador rose gradually from 2018 to 2020, followed by sharper increases from 2021 through 2023. By 2023, the country’s homicide rate was 47 per 100,000, far exceeding the rate of other historically violent nations like Honduras (31), Venezuela (27), Colombia (26), Mexico (23), and El Salvador (2), according to InSight Crime’s 2023 Homicide Round-Up.

Data from authorities does not disaggregate organized crime-related homicides. However, security forces, policy experts, and public officials told InSight Crime that the national surge in violence stemmed from escalating conflicts among the increasingly powerful criminal groups throughout the country. The national patterns seem to confirm these perceptions. Homicides are concentrated in known trafficking corridors and dispatch points.

SEE ALSO: How Criminal Elites in Ecuador Twist Legal Norms to Skirt Justice

This is especially true for cities in the country’s coastal regions. When Ecuador’s national homicide rate dropped significantly from 2010 to 2017, coastal municipalities pushed this drop. Manta’s homicide rate fell from 39 in 2010 to 11 in 2017, while Machala experienced a similarly profound drop from 38 to 9. When Ecuador’s homicide rate began rising after 2017, and sharply spiked in 2022 and 2023, coastal cities again drove this national shift. Manta’s homicide rate increased from 45 per 100,000 to 95 in just one year between 2022 and 2023. Machala increased from 43 to 77 in the same period.

The coastal cities driving the homicide rates in Ecuador, among them Durán, share numerous characteristics: They are motored by export-centered economies near or housing ports; they have similarly high levels of informal economic activity and poverty rates; they suffer from contentious land-tenure issues; and they have poor infrastructure and uneven government services.

Homicides in Durán – Mapping and Analysis

Homicide figures in Durán mirror national patterns, with a significant drop from 2010 to 2017, followed by a gradual and then a sharp increase between 2018 and 2023. Still, Durán’s homicide trends have stood out for their extreme shifts, even when compared to cities on Ecuador’s volatile coast.

The municipality’s homicide rate dropped from 21 per 100,000 residents in 2010 to just 4 per 100,000 in 2017, which was below the national average of 6 per 100,000. Authorities recorded just 11 murders in the municipality in 2017. But after 2017, Durán’s homicide rate rose each year, and, by the end of 2023, Durán recorded an astounding 456 homicides, giving it a homicide rate of 147 per 100,000.

While Ecuadorian authorities do not disaggregate organized crime-related homicides, Ministry of the Interior homicide statistics track the characteristics of homicide victims, the location of murders, and their presumed motive. This data, which we will explore in this section, shows patterns that demonstrate a strong correlation between increased organized crime activity in the municipality and increased homicides.

To begin, let’s consider the age of the victims. Ecuadorian men under 30 represented 51% of homicide victims in Durán in 2023, according to the Ministry of the Interior data. What’s more, the number of young victims has increased at a greater rate in Durán during this time period than in the rest of Ecuador. According to the ministry data, 38% of homicide victims in Durán in 2023 were under 25 years old, up from 18% in 2020. Meanwhile, in the rest of Ecuador, victims under 25 accounted for 30% of murders, up from 20% in 2020. Looking at median ages also shows that homicide victims are younger in Durán than on the national level. In Durán, the median age of the victims was 27 in 2023, while in the rest of Ecuador it was 30, a substantial statistical difference.

Disaggregating the data by gender seems to reinforce the previous argument. According to ministry data, female homicide victims as a percentage of the whole in Durán dropped from 38% in 2016 to 7% in 2023. In the rest of Ecuador, it fell from 18% to 7% in the same time period. While the number of female murder victims in both Durán and the rest of Ecuador increased during this period, the number of male victims skyrocketed, pushing down the percentage of female victims.

Analyzing the homicide heat map also reinforces the general hypothesis regarding the organized crime-related spike in homicides. El Recreo, an area with a mix of criminal groups in dispute, was Durán’s most violent “circuit” (a police administrative unit) in 2023, accounting for 26% of all murders. This is a significant change from 2020-2022, when Recreo recorded between 10-12% of Durán’s murders. Meanwhile, the city center, an area now largely under the sway of the Chone Killers, has seen an uptick in violence, but recorded just 11% of Durán’s murders in 2023, down from 24-27% each year from 2020-2022.

Where the homicides are taking place also seems to illustrate a battle between distant rivals rather than intimate partners. In Durán, homicides committed in “public” spaces rose to 88% of all homicides in 2023, compared to 75% elsewhere in the country. Public murders accounted for between 78% and 89% of murders per year in Durán between 2019 and 2023. Many of these homicides occurred along roadways, the heat map shows, especially in El Recreo. Homicides in Recreo 1 and 2 were, for example, concentrated along the neighborhoods’ central road, while further up in Recreo 3, a high concentration of homicides can also be seen along the neighborhood’s major road.

The municipality has also experienced an increasing number of massacres — events in which three or more people were murdered in one location at the same time — a common illustration of the presence of organized crime. Between January 2023 and April 2024, authorities recorded 29 massacres, including eight massacres between December 2, 2023, and January 6, 2024. Compare that to the period between January 2010 and December 2022, when just six massacres were registered.

Similarly, the type of weapon is also an important indicator. Organized crime uses firearms at a far higher rate than common delinquents and civilians in disputes. In 2023, 93% of homicides were committed with firearms in Durán, significantly higher than 87% elsewhere. This number has also jumped since 2018, when firearms were used in just 59% of homicides in Durán. Firearm usage in homicides in the municipality made a significant leap between 2018 and 2019, rising from 59% to 82%.

The Ministry of the Interior data includes two measures of presumed motive for homicides, both of which reinforce the hypothesis regarding the relationship between organized crime and the uptick in violence. The first measure describes motives with broad categories like “common delinquency,” “community violence,” and “intrafamilial violence.” The second is more specific and includes close to 40 categories, ranging from “abuse” to “house burglary” to “kidnapping.”

For the first measure, “common delinquency” was far and away the most commonly presumed motive for homicides in Durán (99%) and in the rest of Ecuador (89%) in 2023. However, it is difficult to know what is meant by the term. And while it has risen steadily every year after accounting for 40-50% of homicides in 2017 in Duran and the rest of Ecuador, there is little to indicate authorities are disaggregating organized crime-related violence from delinquent acts of violence within the “common delinquency” designation.

In contrast, the second measure is much more precise and seems to support the general thesis regarding organized crime-related violence. In 2023, for instance, authorities attributed 50% of all homicides in Durán to disputes related to microtrafficking. While this number is down from 2021, when microtrafficking resulted in 71% of all murders, the number of deaths attributed to this criminal economy more than quadrupled from 53 in 2021 to 229 in 2023, while the percentage of deaths attributed to microtrafficking in the rest of the country was just 33% in 2023.

Types of Violence in Durán

Based on homicide data, field and desktop interviews, and security and local news reports, we have developed a typology of violence in Durán. Conflicts between and within criminal groups are the most common type of violence in the municipality, but violence against government officials and security forces have also intensified as criminal groups have sought to further consolidate their control over Durán.

Conflict Between Criminal Groups

The violence in Durán cannot be separated from Ecuador’s larger criminal dynamics. The Chone Killers, for example, trace their roots to several incarcerated Ñetas’ efforts to expand their influence via a more strategic criminal alliance with the powerful Choneros criminal group. This transformed this faction from a prison gang to a group of well-armed hitmen with access to the resources of what was then Ecuador’s most important drug trafficking network.

Durán felt the impact of this alliance almost immediately. Empowered by their new ally, the Chone Killers launched a war of expansion for control of Durán starting around 2020. They employed unprecedented brutality. For example, in February 2022, Chone Killers members allegedly hung two corpses from the foot-bridge on Durán’s main road. The appearance of the bodies had a huge symbolic effect on the municipality, community leaders and residents said. They cited it as the moment when they realized any old rules that had governed the use of the violence in Durán had been replaced by new norms.

SEE ALSO: Bodies Hanging from Bridges – Where Mexico Led, Ecuador Follows

Later, in November 2022, the Chone Killers launched a series of bomb, fire, and gun attacks on gas stations, police stations, and municipal offices. The attacks happened in response to security forces intervening in the prison pavilion held by the Chone Killers, according to local media reports, and illustrated how criminal dynamics in the prison were now intimately linked to the street.

The Latin Kings in Durán have also been subsumed by the country’s larger criminal dynamics. In May 2022, hitmen allegedly tied to a powerful Ecuadorian drug mafia murdered Manuel Zúñiga, alias “King Majestic,” in Quito. Majestic had spearheaded the Latin Kings’ participation in the government’s pacification program and had worked hard to keep violence to a minimum, according to numerous participants in the pacification process, security experts, and academics who studied the process.

After Majestic’s death, the power of Guayaquil native, Carlos Manuel Macías Saverio, alias “King Diablo,” increased exponentially. In contrast to Majestic, Diablo – who also had strong links with the prison-based Latin Kings factions – long ran a more militant, criminal wing of the Latin Kings. He made Durán his headquarters and one of the Latin Kings’ main bases of operation.

With Majestic gone, the pacification program done, and Diablo at the helm, the Latin Kings assumed a more belligerent posture, one that sought to protect their territory and their core criminal business: microtrafficking. As they saw it, they had little choice. The Chone Killers were an aggressive rival, and the larger criminal groups had become an existential threat, as clearly evidenced by the murder of Majestic.

By 2023, these multifaceted conflicts boiled over. According to Primicias, Chone Killers members reportedly murdered one of Diablo’s relatives, opening up a more personal line of conflict that led to a spate of murders. Soon after, El Universo reported that the Latin Kings allegedly murdered a relative of Antonio Benjamín Camacho, alias “Ben 10,” an important Chone Killers leader. Amid this upheaval, Washington Sellán Hati, alias “Washo,” a powerful Durán powerbroker, was also murdered, while Julio Alberto Martínez, alias “Negro Tulio,” increasingly rebelled against traditional Chone Killers leadership, leading to violent clashes between the groups factions that added to their intense confrontations with the Latin Kings.

At the street level, these conflicts have driven the municipality’s spike in homicides as the Latin Kings, the Chone Killers, and others settle personal scores with rivals and fight for control of microtrafficking and extortion territory, police, municipal officials, security experts, and community leaders in Durán told InSight Crime.

Homicide data also suggests that conflict between and within criminal groups is the principal driver of violence in Durán. As detailed in the previous section, the proportion of young victims has grown significantly as Durán’s homicides have exploded, which is indicative of elevated gang conflict. Security officials and community leaders told InSight Crime that as gangs have become entrenched in the municipality, they have increasingly placed minors and young people on the front lines of battles. Minors are less likely to face serious charges if they are caught committing crimes. The heightened percentage of male victims in Durán also points to accelerating criminal conflict, as males are often the ones fighting in gang conflicts.

The percentage of murders in public spaces and murders with firearms, both of which exceed national averages, further point to the central role of gang violence in Durán’s homicide crisis. Government officials and security forces interviewed by InSight Crime also noted the use of sicarios, or contract-killers, by criminal groups to settle scores with rivals. As violence has increased, so have drive-by shootings in public areas.

The conflict between criminal groups has also increasingly impacted civilians in Durán. While civilians are rarely targeted, the number of collateral victims of gang violence in the municipality is “enormous,” according to Billy Navarrete, director of Ecuador’s Human Rights Defense Committee (Comité Permanente por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos – CDH). Official statistics do not separate “civilian” victims from suspected criminals, but increasingly brazen attacks by gangs, evidenced by the rise of homicides with firearms and in public areas, support Navarrete’s claim that risk for civilians is high.

Criminal Groups vs. Government Officials and Employees

Durán’s criminal groups use violence and threats of violence against public officials as a key strategy to maintain their hold over valuable posts in the municipal government. Homicides are rare, but attacks against public officials have gained steam concurrently with the increasing infiltration of criminal groups in Durán’s municipal government. And contrary to the often brazen nature of gang attacks on rivals in the streets, attacks against Durán’s political actors and public officials are more targeted and have specific motives that go beyond battles for territory, one government official told InSight Crime.

There is no complete data of assassination attempts against public officials, but there are numerous recent examples. Most notably, in May 2023, hitmen shot at the recently-inaugurated Mayor Chonillo in an attack in Durán that killed three people. The attack was not the first. Less than a year earlier, armed men fired shots at one of Chonillo’s campaign events held in the notoriously violent 28 de Agosto neighborhood. No one was injured. According to two members of the Chonillo campaign, the shots were a warning.

“It was a way to get our attention,” a member of Chonillo’s campaign who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons told InSight Crime. “We’d ignored their previous messages demanding a meeting with the mayoral candidate.”

Versions differ about what happened after the attack. Two members of the campaign said Chonillo, fearing another attack, met with representatives of Washo, Durán’s criminal powerbroker. Meanwhile, another member of the campaign did not mention a meeting between Chonillo and Washo. The three members of Chonillo’s campaign agreed, though, that shortly after the attack Chonillo returned to campaign freely in 28 de Agosto. When InSight Crime asked him about it, Chonillo denied ever meeting Washo in person, and, as of publication of this report, he continues to govern from outside the municipality.

It is hard to discern the precise motive in attacks on government officials, like in the case of Chonillo. But there are often clues. In another, emblematic case, Miguel Santos Burgos, Durán’s land director, was assassinated by hitmen in August 2023. Media reports, government officials, and security experts consulted by InSight Crime cited Santos’ involvement in land tenure issues as the reason for his assassination.

Specifically, Santos was working to make it easier for Durán residents living in invasions to obtain titles to their land, according to these sources. This angered criminal actors and corrupt officials who continue to profit from the chaotic land registration system and the vulnerability of residents without land titles. Santos had also received threats leading up to his assassination, according to a municipal official and another former member of Chonillo’s campaign who spoke to InSight Crime.

Criminal groups have also targeted other government officials. In 2023, hitmen killed a prosecutor and a municipal council member. In 2024, assassins targeted firefighters and transit agents.

These attacks have picked up pace as the Chone Killers have fragmented, with Negro Tulio, the group’s breakaway leader, acting autonomously from other leaders. Authorities are investigating his role in the murders of at least four public officials, including Santos, in 2023 and 2024.

Criminal groups leverage the threat of violence in an equally impactful way, using it to pressure government officials to act in accordance with their interests. The Chonillo government is a good, recent example. A government official who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons told InSight Crime that they received threats from gang members through WhatsApp, demanding the official’s help in removing Chonillo from office. Municipal council members have also frequently been threatened because the council has the power to impeach the mayor, the official said.

At the site of a June 2024 bomb attack at the company of Chonillo’s family, Poligráfica SA, in Durán, a message was found calling for the mayor’s resignation, according to local media reports. Chonillo, of course, remains in office.

Criminal Groups vs. Security Forces

Although it is rare, security forces, particularly police, are targeted by criminal groups in Durán. According to the Ministry of the Interior data, two police have been murdered in the municipality since 2010, both in acts of violence attributed to gangs. But, the government data is suspect. In one case in November 2022, the Ministry of the Interior data identified two slain police officers as “students.” And InSight Crime monitoring of news reports suggests that at least five police have been killed in Durán since 2022.

The police face violence in both premeditated and spontaneous attacks. In the November 2022 incident cited above, Chone Killers members organized the premeditated attack against the two police officers. That same month, the criminal group staged explosives attacks on three different police stations around the municipality, according to police officials. The attacks were reportedly a response to transfers of imprisoned members of the group out of their base in the Litoral Penitentiary.

In July 2024, gunmen killed a policeman in Guayaquil. According to El Universo, the officer had participated in a raid on a Chone Killers property in Durán in 2023, after which he had received threats and was transferred to Guayaquil. A police spokesperson told Extra that the murder was “retaliation” by criminal groups, but did not specify the motive.

More spontaneous attacks can happen when security forces catch criminal groups off guard or in the act of committing a crime. In March 2024, for example, suspected members of a criminal group shot and injured two police officers after they were stopped at a police checkpoint, according to one former Durán government official with knowledge of the case. The shooters escaped in vehicles belonging to Durán’s firefighters, said the ex-official and El Universo.

Other security forces, such as armed forces and security guards, have been targeted by gang attacks less frequently than police. According to the data, only three security guards and three military personnel have been murdered in Durán since 2010. As both of these groups hold an increasingly central role to the municipality’s battle against organized crime, violence by criminal groups against these actors could pick up significantly.