The screams from the women and children pierce the air as the battering ram smashes through the front door of their home.
There’s shouting and all-round chaos as police officers – machine guns and pistols held out in front of them – pile inside.
Doors are kicked in, curtains ripped down, drawers are opened in bedrooms, and boxes and tables are overturned.
“There’s children here!” the women shout, as they all drop to the floor.
Officers force their way into home on a raid
We are on a drugs raid in Guayaquil in Ecuador, and the police say they have good intelligence that this is the home of a drug dealer.
I have done dozens of embeds during my career covering Latin America’s drugs gangs, and it’s always deeply upsetting to see children caught up in it.
These are homes, and these are women and children, but their rights are trumped by their circumstances – they are poor, live in a rough area, and the likelihood is that one of their family members is part of a gang.
The police coming through their door is a fact of life for them.
Police are getting additional resources to tackle drug cartels
What has changed here, though, is that the raids have increased, and will continue to.
Why? Because US President Donald Trump has launched a war against drug cartels – and is demanding that countries on his list of troublesome nations tow the line and join him, or face punishing sanctions or worse.
Ecuador doesn’t produce drugs, but it is used as a transit country by drug cartels in this region. Its ports are the gateway to sea routes north to the United States and west to Asia and the South Pacific.
It is for this reason that Ecuador is on Trump’s list. But Ecuador wants help combatting these criminal networks and has been co-operating with the US.
Trump has been sending resources and military muscle to Ecuador, and the US is planning to open a military base there.
In exchange, Ecuador’s security forces are raising their game to assure America that they are on the same page.
Stuart Ramsay in Guayaquil, Ecuador
We witnessed this effort in real time, guided through multiple raids by a police officer with the call sign “Lynx”. He’s a former special forces officer now affiliated with the drugs squad, and he is something of a phenomenon.
“The United States [is] giving us money, guns, technology, and we are so happy about that,” he told me.
“It’s very important for the war.”
You could say that Lynx is in many ways the poster boy of the Ecuadorian police – he’s extremely confident, highly rated by his superiors and adored by his team.
Among his repertoire of skills, he is an expert drone pilot.
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Stuart Ramsay meets with former special forces officer ‘Lynx’
I joined him in the car park of the police headquarters as he put up his drone and started spotting drug deals on the streets a kilometre or so away. We watched the screen on the controller as two transactions took place.
The multibillion-dollar drugs business is a vast global network, and by taking out the “small guys” as Lynx calls them, they hope to disrupt the chain higher up.
“We always grab the small guys, and they talk … give me that guy, he’s a bigger guy, and then we go, go, go,” is how Lynx describes taking out the chain.
They hope that any intelligence they can gather from the lower links will ultimately be valuable information they can pass on to the US to catch more important figures.
A suspect lies on the ground as police stand guard
Lynx briefs his boss, and then we jump in our vehicles as the police try to track down the dealers. They find them – and the drugs they were selling – the next day.
The same day, we head to a notoriously dangerous hilltop neighbourhood with Lynx and the rest of the officers. They are looking for more drugs and dealers who will talk.
They arrest one man they say is a lookout – and as they search through piles of rubbish for drugs, they find bags of cocaine.
Lynx thinks we are being watched, so he sends his drone up again, this time to see what’s happening in the streets above us.
Police are getting additional resources to tackle drug cartels
“Many people [are] up on the hill, like radars looking for us, and what we are doing, and they have an advantage because they’re higher up,” he says.
“We will take the evidence, and that guy is not the owner, he is just a lookout,” he says, pointing to the man in handcuffs on the floor.
“And then I’m going to take you next to where a big drug dealer is, a strong dealer.”
Armed officers watch on outside a home in Guayaquil
I ask Lynx if he thinks people who do drugs in London, New York, or Los Angeles – or anywhere really – think about him and his officers on the streets every single day.
“I think no, because they’re in the countries more powerful, smarter, if they really [knew] I think they would think no, it’s bad, because people are killing in poor countries for the drugs, for the drugs [they] are consuming,” he replied.
“Maybe they’ll think, oh I don’t have to do that.”
The haul of drugs, weapons, ammunition and money from the raids we joined is pretty impressive.
Bags of marijuana, kilo packets of cocaine cut for sale, alongside a kilo of pure cocaine paste. There’s also money, weapons and ammunition.
It’s something of a Latin American tradition to display the results of these raids.
Behind the table, also on display, are the alleged gang members.
Who they know is worth more than all the drugs in front of them, which is what the Americans want.
