Ecuador and the United States signed an agreement on Wednesday that formally formalized the opening of the first office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the Andean country, which will aim to support the fight against international organized crime groups. "This is an alliance that will allow us to more effectively face transnational organized crime networks," said Ecuador's Minister of the Interior, John Reimberg, during the event, held in the capital Quito. In addition to the opening of the office, a new police unit was created that will allow both countries to improve their joint capacity to "identify, dismantle, and bring to justice those who traffic in drugs, launder money, smuggle weapons, and finance terrorism," according to information provided by the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador. The U.S. diplomatic mission added that the agreement creates a "framework for sharing information, coordinating operations, developing capabilities and carrying out parallel investigations against foreign and transnational terrorist organizations." Minister Reimberg assured, after signing the agreement, that the FBI's work with the Ecuadorian police will begin "immediately," as there has already been "training and preparation" beforehand. At the signing of the memorandum, in which there was no open call for the press, were also present the Vice President of Ecuador, María José Pinto, and the Chargé d'Affaires of the U.S. embassy, Lawrence Petroni, who described the event as a "very important milestone" in cooperation between the two countries. The diplomat recalled that FBI teams had previously collaborated with Ecuadorian security forces, as when they arrived in the country after the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio and, in 2025, when a car bomb exploded outside offices belonging to the family of President Daniel Noboa, in Guayaquil. The United States has become a key partner for Ecuador in the "war" that President Noboa declared since early 2024 against criminal gangs, which he classified as "terrorists" for being the cause of the worst violence crisis in the country's history, which has led it to lead Latin America in the homicide index. This agreement adds to the joint military operations that both countries began last week on Ecuadorian soil against "terrorist" organizations, in which they bombed and destroyed a training camp of the Border Commands, one of the criminal groups of the extinct Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).
