Daniela Chacón Arias, executive director at Fundación TANDEM, and former Quito vice mayor and city council member: “Over the last decade, Ecuador’s role in the drug trafficking and organized crime market has changed. It began as a transit point for drugs produced in Colombia; however, it now plays a strategic role in the cocaine value chain. The interdependence between the proximity of illicit crops and production laboratories along the southern border of Colombia, the presence of laboratories on the Ecuadorean border, weak controls of state institutions on the border and Ecuadorean coast, as well as dollarization and low banking penetration that facilitate illicit activities and money laundering are some of the main factors driving this change. In recent years, major Latin American and European drug trafficking cartels have settled in Ecuador and operate through local criminal groups that fight for control of the lucrative business. Despite being a global problem…”