Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso yesterday announced to the country that it has decided to ratify the Cooperation Agreement with the United States for the air interception of narco plane, a few hours before the end of the bloodiest and most convulsive campaign in the history of Ecuador. An electoral process marked by the assassination of candidate Fernando Villavicencio and for the constant harassment of drug trafficking and organized crime against the democracy of the Andean country.
A team from the American FBI is already in Quito to participate in the research around the assassination, along with the local and Colombian police.
“We need this support to strengthen national security. We have to be more prepared and stronger. The organized crime is not going to stop us,” stressed Lasso, who in this way wants the military and police to have help from the US in the fight against transnational crime, thanks to “financial assistance, equipment for their operational capacity, maintenance, training, as well as logistics, command, control and communications support.
The objective sought by the government is that its Air Force count not only on better equipment, but also on better information to track to the aircraft of criminal organizations. Drug trafficking has turned Ecuador into the epicenter of its cocaine shipments to the US and Europeas they are among the large producers (Peru, Colombia and Bolivia) and given the pressure to which they are subjected in those countries.
“With this agreement, the US and Ecuador will continue to fight together against transnational organized crime,” confirmed yesterday the american embassy in Quito, which also opted to “increase the capacity” of the National Police, the Coast Guard Command and the judicial sector.