Organized Crime and Value Chains: Ecuador's Strategic Rise in the Drug Trafficking Economy

The The research aims to identify Ecuador's strategic insertion in the Drug Trafficking Value Chain. Through qualitative research, remote sensing techniques, spatial geographic analysis, semi-structured interviews and analysis of information from primary and secondary sources, the rise of drug trafficking on the northern border is characterized. The study concludes that Ecuador went from being a transit country to a country that occupies a privileged position in the value chain of drug trafficking. The evidence generated from the discovery of 700 hectares of illicit coca leaf crops in Esmeraldas, Carchi and Sucumbios, the multiple supply routes from Colombia, as well as territorial disputes and the increase in violence from 2015 to 2019, make Ecuador an ideal territory for the global economy of organized crime.