This week, a prosecutor was shot dead outside of his office in broad daylight, becoming the third prosecutor to be slain in Ecuador this year, further deepening the country's slide into drug-fueled violence.

According to regional news reports, 43-year-old Edgar Escobar Zambrano prosecuted serious crimes in the coastal city of Guayaquil. Two suspects, aged 16 and 19, were detained by police and are being held in pretrial detention for his murder. 

Prosecutors and judges all throughout the nation have called for improved security measures and safety for public servants in response to Escobar's death. It also brought attention to the blatant violence that has plagued Guayaquil, the largest city in the nation, which has grown into a key shipping point for cocaine and other illegal substances bound for the United States and Europe.

Attorney General Diana Salazar Méndez of Ecuador 

 a message on Twitter saying, “I am deeply outraged by this new murder of a fellow prosecutor, the third so far this year”. “These criminal acts will not stop the work of the Prosecutor's Office to combat crime in our country. We demand guarantees and security to carry out our work.”

Escobar's killing's motivation has not been disclosed by the authorities. But in recent years, Guayaquil has seen an increase in homicides and 

 that mirror some of the most gruesome strategies used in Mexico's drug-related violence, including decapitated heads, bodies dangling from bridges, and bombings.

According to Xavier Chango, the national head of criminalistics, authorities discovered seven 9mm bullet casings next to Escobar's body. Photos shared on Twitter showed the prosecutor, who was dressed in a coat and tie and was covered in blood, hunched over on the ground near to a tree.

According to the journal El Universo, Escobar handled delicate drug trafficking and murder cases throughout his tenure. It further stated that as of July, Escobar was bringing drug trafficking charges against eight accused members of a criminal gang. It's unknown what group the defendants belonged to or how far along the case is against them.

According to El Universo, Escobar also prosecuted two prisoners accused of taking part in a November jail 

 that left 68 prisoners dead and another twenty-four injured. The carnage at the overcrowded, gang-run Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil is thought to have been the result of an ongoing conflict between the prison gangs. It is one of numerous prison uprisings that have claimed the lives of hundreds of prisoners, including one that occurred in September 2021 at Litoral Penitentiary and claimed more than 100 lives.

According to figures from the Security Ministry, there were 2,494 homicides in Ecuador last year, up from 1,371 in 2020, a rise of more than 80%.

Guillermo Lasso, the conservative president of Ecuador who took office in May 2021, imposed a fourth state of emergency in Guayaquil in August following a bombing that left five people dead and 17 injured.

 to the president following the explosion, Guayaquil Mayor Cynthia Viteri stated that “Criminal gangs have become a government within a government in Ecuador”. “Who is in charge here, organized crime or an enslaved government?”

Lasso responded on Twitter, "The enemy of the country is drug terrorism, not the administration."

Ecuador's Rising Crime: Another Prosecutor Killed

0 Comments