Ecuador...."La Puta" of Latin America countries.

The pic above...Admire the beauty of Ecuadorian girls
Ecuador is emerging as a focus for transnational criminal groups, according to US and European officials. Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers as well as Chinese and African human traffickers use it as a business hub.

The officials and analysts say concern about Ecuador has been mounting since an Ecuadorian government investigation revealed in December that the drug trafficking Revolutionary Army of Colombia (FARC) possessed an extensive network in Ecuador that includes some of President Rafael Correa's closest aides and may have allowed the guerrillas to partially fund his 2006 election campaign.

FARC's penetration of Ecuador's government and judiciary, the country's weak institutions and anti-money laundering laws and its nonexistent anti‐terror financing laws as well as its porous borders with its drugs producing neighbors have turned Ecuador into a place where transnational criminal organizations from Latin America, Russia, China, India and Africa can conduct business, according to a just-released report by the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center (IASC).
"Ecuador (is) attractive to a host of Latin American criminal organizations, particularly for money laundering activities," the report says.


The report goes on to say that Ecuador is "increasingly attractive for Russian organized criminal groups, both for weapon sales to the FARC and to launder money" and that "Chinese triads, particularly those involved in smuggling human beings, have greatly increased their presence in Ecuador." The Financial Action Task Force warned in 2007 that Ecuador had failed to comply with 48 of its 49 recommendations on money laundering and terrorist financing.

The officials say the lifting in 2008 of visa requirements for nationals of most countries and the adoption in 2000 of the US dollar as Ecuador's national currency make it easy for Russian, Chinese, Indian and African criminal organizations to operate in Ecuador.
The lifting of visa requirements has allowed Chinese triads as well as Indian and African human traffickers to process people they are trafficking through Ecuador, the Washington institute's report says. US diplomats say that virtually every non-Latin American immigrant caught since the lifting entering the United States from Central America and Mexico has transited through Ecuador. "They are mostly Africans or Central Asians, which raises security concerns," one diplomat said.

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