Erik Prince, founder of the controversial security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, joined in law enforcement operations on Saturday in Guayaquil, one of Ecuador’s most violent cities, according to local officials.
The operations saw 10 houses raided and 40 people detained, Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg said.
“Since early this morning, the security block together with the American Erik Prince, a security expert, and the Ministers of Defense, Gian Carlo Loffredo and the Minister of the Interior, John Reimberg, were deployed in territory in Guayaquil, especially in the suburbs, attacking criminals and outlining strategies to strengthen the great actions of our law enforcement forces in the field of operations,” Ecuador’s Defense Ministry posted on X Saturday morning.
Prince also said in a video posted by Ecuador’s Defense Ministry that he was in the country “providing the law enforcement and the military the tools and the tactics to effectively combat the narco-gangs.”
The aim, Prince continued, is to “put the narcos on their back heels and make them truly afraid of being caught.”
His visit to the South American nation comes weeks after Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa announced a “strategic alliance” with Prince to fight organized crime.
The country’s Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo said Prince and his team are currently providing training and advice to Ecuador’s security forces – but added that their scope of action could be expanded. “They may not be limited to just those actions,” Loffredo said.
Prince has been in the country for a “few days,” and work is ongoing to develop a new plan to combat Ecuador’s gangs, he also said.
CNN has reached out to Ecuador’s Defense Ministry for more information on Prince’s visit.
In recent years, Ecuador – which is sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, top producers of cocaine – has become caught up in the drug trade and the violence that always follows it. Its efficient transport and export system has been used by cartels to move and ship their goods overseas — the bricks of cocaine hidden in boxes of bananas and other goods that then head to the United States, Europe and the rest of the world.
Noboa has increasingly called for foreign help to combat the criminal groups and has even asked US President Donald Trump to designate local gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. Ecuador’s government is currently laying groundwork for US forces to arrive, according to plans
Noboa’s efforts however will be heavily dependent on next week’s presidential runoff vote. He’s set off to face leftist candidate Luisa Gonzalez, who has positioned herself as equally tough on crime but opposes the presence of any foreign force in the country.
In the same video posted by the defense ministry, Prince called on Ecuadorians to vote for Noboa, warning that otherwise Ecuador risked “looking just like Venezuela, a narco-state with massive drug processing with all the criminality and socialism and despair that comes with that.”
“I hope Ecuador chooses law and order and we are here to help to combat the gangs and to provide the tools for the government to restore law and order, peace and prosperity,” he added.