Military personnel participated in controls on vehicles without license plates and patrolled the commercial sector of Bahía, in the center of Guayaquil, whose premises remained closed after a wave of terrorist violence in the city.
Military subdues a suspect in the commercial sector of Bahía, downtown Guayaquil, where businesses remained closed this Wednesday, January 10, 2024.
The exhaustive search includes stripping the suspects’ shoes, socks and T-shirts in search of weapons, drugs or tattoos from declared terrorist gangs, as well as reviewing private messages on cell phones.
This is how the searches were carried out in Guayaquil this Wednesday, January 10, 2024, in a new state of exception, after the declaration of internal armed conflict in the country and armed incursions that left 14 homicides, since the previous afternoon in the city.
A dozen soldiers who patrolled the commercial sector of Bahía, subjected to controls men who were hanging around the corner of Malecón and Olmedo avenues, this Wednesday morning, in the heart of Guayaquil.
They threw a suspect face down on the floor when they found small bags of marijuana in his pockets. And one of the officers asked him if the cell phone was his; He questioned why the person who sent messaging audios from his phone was a woman.
That she was “a daughter,” responded the man on the ground, who was finally arrested for the small amounts of drugs in his pockets.
“We are patrolling the entire city, we check criminal records and tattoos related to criminal gangs, as this helps us better profile the suspects,” reported one of the soldiers in the operation.
This January 9, Ecuador declared terrorists to 22 criminal gangs whose members tattoo an entire fauna of animals such as eagles, lizards, wolves, tigers (by the Tiguerones), or crowns (Latin Kings), depending on the name of the criminal group.
1,000 suspicious vehicles on the avenue
The Armed Forces also participated in an operation to control vehicles without license plates and improper use of anti-sun films, together with the Transit and Mobility Agency (ATM) and the Municipality of Guayaquil.
According to the ATM, 23 vehicles were detained for not having license plates, which carries a fine of 50% of a basic salary.
Meanwhile, 80 citations were issued, fines of 15% of the basic salary in the case of solar films that impede the visibility of passengers inside the vehicles.
Andrés Sandoval, manager of the Municipal Public Company Segura EP, assured that on the Narcisa de Jesús highway – site of the operation – the circulation of around 1,000 vehicles without license plates or with tinted windows has been identified by cameras, between 08:00 and 10:00.
But on a completely atypical control day, the large avenues looked clear, without the usual traffic or congestion.
In the Albán Borja shopping center (to the north), the target of a shooting that left two guards murdered and a vehicle partially incinerated on Tuesday afternoon, only bank branches and an external supermarket in the complex’s parking lot served the public.
A desolate city
In the center of Guayaquil, hundreds of businesses preferred not to open after the raids the previous afternoon that included shootings, kidnappings and collateral victims.
“It’s like a Carnival holiday in which everyone leaves the city, but sadder,” summarized Cristian García, a salesman at an appliance store on 9 de Octubre Avenue. Only 30% of stores opened and the influx is a third of normal, he said.
Throughout the morning they had not had a single customer in that establishment and the previous afternoon – after the early closing of the business, at 3:00 p.m. – he had to walk two hours to his house in the neighboring Durán canton, in the absence of public transportation.
The Malecón shopping center itself (in the central area of the city), with its cinemas, food courts and amusement parks, also remained closed. And in the Bay area the closure of stores was widespread.
“La Bahía is a popular shopping center in the middle of a public street, we are more exposed so we decided not to open,” said Ángel Bazurto, union leader.
Only in the metal booths of the Bay – not counting a similar number of commercial premises – 4,300 merchants work, who request greater police protection to return to work.
