Ecuador’s Diana Salazar Bravely Battles Gangs Politicians Amid Escalating Violence
Diana Salazar, Ecuador’s attorney-general, is a steady leader in a nation troubled by increased violence and apparent corruption. Drug lords pose a threat as she looks into the ties among traffickers, politicians as well as judges endangering her life to secure Ecuador’s future.
Under Fire From All Sides
Shadows follow Diana Salazar wherever she goes. Ecuador’s once-calm streets have lately turned into war zones prowled by drug cartels, and the attorney general’s security detail remains on full alert. As her armored vehicle weaves through Quito’s congested avenues, her guards watch for any tailing vehicles—a necessary vigilance, given that the sister of a suspected drug lord was recently discovered following her car. Salazar recounts such episodes as routine misfortunes, like missing a bus. In the serious fight to protect Ecuador, she faces threats every day.
The growing danger started recently. What people once saw as a calm refuge in Latin America got mixed up with rising violence and crime over the last five years. The nation’s strategically crucial coastal region became a prime drug route thanks to weak control, which allowed foreign cartels and local gangs to exploit transit areas. Ecuador now stands with its violent neighbors in the region as murder rates increased.
In the middle of this disorder, Diana Salazar heads a new campaign that aims to identify connections between crime networks and authorities. Her current battle involves fighting against corrupt police officers and bribed judges who operate alongside powerful government officials. Many in Ecuador credit her with attempting to clean the house before the cartels become an unassailable fixture, as they are in some other Latin American states. But her crusade has provoked formidable enemies—particularly among those loyal to Rafael Correa, a former president who remains influential in exile.
Political battles loom just as significant. On April 13th, Ecuadorians will elect a new president, deciding if Salazar’s work will persist. As her current six-year term ends on April 8th, her investigations into the country’s labyrinthine corruption networks could be curtailed. Politicians who oppose her vow to clip her authority or replace her entirely if they gain power.
The Narco Stranglehold
To understand why Diana Salazar has become such a vital—and divisive—figure, one must follow the trails of evidence she and her investigative team have unearthed. In 2022, a known drug financier named Leandro Norero was murdered in prison, but not before authorities seized his mobile phones. Messages discovered on these devices painted a staggering picture: Judges allegedly released narcotics traffickers in exchange for large bribes, and certain police officers tampered with evidence. More explosively, the data suggested that money had changed hands to secure the release of Jorge Glas, a former vice president under Rafael Correa who had been convicted of corruption.
According to Salazar’s team, the phone logs revealed references to a “little favor” that might be repaid if Glas or his allies regained power. One prisoner even claimed that Norero boasted of personally contacting Correa in pursuit of a favorable decision. Correa has denied all such allegations, dismissing them as part of a persecution narrative. Meanwhile, Salazar views the scandal as a microcosm of the deeper rot connecting officials of all stripes—some loyal to Correa, others associated with the current or past governments—to Ecuador’s rapidly expanding drug underworld.
This case cemented Salazar’s reputation as the driving force behind a wave of corruption prosecutions. Since December 2023, she has pressed charges against 76 individuals, including ex-legislators, judges, high-ranking prison officials, and law enforcement officers. Of these, 44 have already been sentenced, while two dozen received plea deals in exchange for implicating higher-level conspirators. Investigations are ongoing, with Salazar’s office continuing to sort through troves of encrypted messages that detail drug financing, judicial meddling, and infiltration of public institutions.
Interviewed by The Economist—which has kept a close watch on Ecuador’s turmoil—Salazar stated that these revelations were just the beginning. The infiltration of transnational crime cartels is accelerating in Ecuador’s major cities and coastal provinces, buoyed by complicity within local systems. Although some vow that the country has not yet descended to the scale of Mexico’s entrenched narco-networks, Salazar warns that this future is not far off if the legal system’s vulnerabilities remain unaddressed.
Political Storms and Accusations
Rafael Correa is no stranger to denouncing Salazar. Convicted in 2020 of corruption while Salazar served as attorney-general, he has repeatedly argued that she is a mere puppet installed by unnamed right-wing interests. Living in Belgium—which granted him asylum—Correa claims that his successors are the true architects of Ecuador’s security decay, highlighting budget cuts to prisons and the justice system that occurred after he left office in 2017. He insists that when he governed, Ecuador’s homicide rate was among the region’s lowest, a sign that conditions have deteriorated under his political rivals.
For her part, Salazar notes that Correa’s portrayal of a peaceful, well-managed Ecuador under his leadership omits crucial details. She points out that Correa evicted a U.S. military base that had been helping monitor drug routes off the coast, possibly enabling increased trafficking. Furthermore, some leaders of the now-disbanded FARC, a Colombian guerrilla group that historically used Ecuadorian corridors for smuggling, alleged that they funneled money into Correa’s initial presidential campaign.
The hostilities do not end there. Correa’s supporters—commonly labeled correístas—accuse Salazar of partisanship, claiming her investigations disproportionately target their camp. Twice, they launched impeachment motions against her, only to fail. Some attacks took on a personal tone. Politician Luisa González, now running for president, once mocked Salazar’s pregnancy as a “show” when Salazar received a postponement of a hearing for health reasons. Others have belittled her prior exam results for the attorney-general post, carefully omitting that she finished with the top aggregate marks in the country. Salazar wonders if her background as a black woman from an unprivileged area of Ecuador has contributed to the misogyny and racism evident in the barbs.
Yet Salazar’s record defies the accusations that she unthinkingly shields the right wing. Under her watch, she has gone after officials tied to Guillermo Lasso, a center-right former president, and leading inquiries into the conduct of Lenín Moreno, who succeeded Correa and was not part of Lasso’s network. She built part of her legal reputation by helping authorities charge corruption at FIFA, the global soccer group, in 2016. For those on the left who oppose her, she uses these cases to prove that she does not follow party politics.
Claims of bias remain. Some media outlets released what they described as text messages between Salazar and some left-wing figures, which called into question when she began her investigations. She categorically rejects these texts as forgeries and calls them part of a deliberate “smear campaign” aimed at discrediting her as she closes in on well-connected criminals.
Uncertain Future, National Stakes
Salazar’s zeal has attracted admiration among Ecuador’s citizens, who see her as a final rampart against further social chaos. A Quito-based businessman, for example, calls her a “national treasure,” suggesting she matters more to the country’s stability than the shifting politicians in the Carondelet Palace. Yet Salazar remains adamant that justice must stay apart from politics. Asked whether she harbors political ambitions, she flatly denies any desire for office, stating that judicial independence cannot co-exist with direct political involvement.
“Politicians should keep their hands out of judicial matters,” she says.
She does not pretend the road will be easy. At present, drug-trafficking organizations rule many neighborhoods, waging battles with open displays of firepower. Prisons, too, have become flashpoints, with violent clashes triggered by rival narco-factions. While refusing to let parallels to Mexico overshadow her country’s situation, Salazar concedes that Ecuador stands at a crossroads: Should institutional infiltration persist, breaking the cartels’ control might become difficult or impossible. Her office keeps filing charges that result in many guilty verdicts to show that people will not avoid punishment.
She also highlights that the choice of her successor after April 8th could drastically alter the fight against corruption. If a new president opts to remove her or appoint a more pliable attorney-general, the purges she has initiated could grind to a halt, and the systematic infiltration of organized crime might accelerate. Votes cast on April 13th—when Ecuadorians pick between Daniel Noboa, the current leader, and Luisa González, who has the support of Correa—will likely shape the continuum of Salazar’s mission. Many fear that if the candidate allied with Correa prevails, the tide will turn swiftly against her investigations.
Still, Salazar hopes her example can rally citizens to defend the rule of law. She draws strength from the simple sense of duty that has guided her since she served in lower-level prosecutorial capacities, including her role in convicting Ecuador’s soccer federation president for bribery. Handling threats and motorbike tails is simply part of the job, she says—a job that must be done if Ecuador is to avoid the fate of other narco-plagued corners of Latin America.
Throughout these tribulations, Salazar has made it a priority to give interviews to credible media outlets, including The Economist, as cited earlier, which has tracked Ecuador’s descent into narco-violence and corruption. By consistently underscoring that drug cartels can only gain ascendancy when public institutions fail, she lays out the case for vigilance. She has no illusions that her stand will be enough on its own. The judiciary, police, politicians, and civil society must do more than talk: they must collectively disrupt the flow of laundered money, sever backroom deals, and restore the faith of ordinary people in public structures. Otherwise, as she warns, the line between public officials and criminal overlords will blur beyond distinction.
For now, Salazar’s unwavering stance has turned her into one of Ecuador’s most recognized public servants. Many see in her the possibility that law and order can persevere even amid corruption and intimidation. Her message is unequivocal: whether you belong to the far left, far right, or somewhere between if you engage in illicit activity, justice should—and will—come knocking. But in a country whipsawed by political rancor and a wave of violent crime, her longevity in power and success hinge on the upcoming election. If her next occupant in the attorney general’s office lacks her resolve, the ground gained may be fleeting, and Ecuador’s transformation into a narco stronghold may accelerate.
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Her watchword is hope, grounded in a conviction that an inflection point remains within reach. “We’re not like Mexico, and we’re not going to get there,” she insists. She frames her successes—and the purge they have induced—as a clarion call, reminding would-be criminals that they cannot hide behind political connections indefinitely. Whether that vision endures or is stifled rests as much with the electorate as with her. As citizens weigh their ballots, they, in effect, decide if Diana Salazar’s high-risk campaign continues or if it slips into the annals of frustrated attempts to rescue a country from corruption’s iron grip.
