A mayor is shot to death in Ecuador. The crime occurred in the midst of the state of emergency that has been in force in Ecuador since January.
In August of last year, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot as he left a meeting with supporters. Located in the middle of Colombia and Peru, the largest cocaine producers in the world, Ecuador has become a logistics center for shipping drugs to the U.S. and Europe. Within the small nation, criminal gangs associated with Mexican and Colombian cartels compete to the death for trafficking routes.