The honorary consul of the United Kingdom in the port city of Guayaquil, Colin Armstrong, was kidnapped in the province of Los Ríos (southwest) in the midst of a growing wave of violence linked to drug trafficking, the police said this Saturday.
According to local media, the diplomat is also an agricultural businessman and was kidnapped at dawn on his farm in the Baba canton.
In a message on the X network, the Police indicated that their troops carry out “operational and investigative work” in Los Ríos.
Neither the United Kingdom embassy nor the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry have commented on the matter.
In recent years, Ecuador has become a center of operations for foreign and local drug cartels that impose a regime of terror with massacres, kidnappings and extortion.
Numerous gangs control the prisons and the streets where violence has escalated. Since 2018, the national homicide rate has quadrupled, going from 6 to 26 per 100,000 inhabitants.
That same week, the entire country is shocked by the murder of four brothers aged 7, 5, 3 years and a few months at the hands of hitmen, also in the city of Guayaquil.
The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, in power since November, is committed to a tough policy against drug organizations.
Located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s largest cocaine producers, Ecuador reached a record 210 tons of drugs seized in 2021.