Extortion and Criminal Networks: The Impact of Criminality on Small Retailers in Guayaquil 2023-2024

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the phenomenon of extortion as one of the recurrent strategies currently being used by criminal networks to control and subdue small businesses in Guayaquil during the years 2023 and 2024. Based on a theoretical review and a qualitative methodology used with a descriptive approach, it will examine the social, economic and psychological effects faced by small and medium-sized merchants in the city of Guayaquil in the face of this type of structural violence.

The present research will also highlight the institutional weakening of the state as it confronts the expansion of organized crime.

With the applicable Ecuadorian normative framework, analysis of sentences developed by judges as established jurisprudence and the urgent need to strengthen the inter-institutional response, we will analyze several fundamental aspects from the legal, social and institutional point of view that should be applied with more rigidity within the Ecuadorian state.