Fighting a losing battle Death and destruction mark cocaine's path to Europe

GUAYAQUIL sign on the doorway said "For rent" and the house's lights were out.

- Tom Phillips

But the assault team were convinced a group of armed gang members lurked inside. As darkness enveloped Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, six truckloads of military and police troopers screeched to a halt in front of the seemingly vacant home.

Some pummelled its entrances with steel batteringrams, crowbars and fists.

Others scrambled up its outer wall.

Their hunch was confirmed. One suspect leapt from a second-floor window and ran across a roof. As the house was stormed, a second man was wrestled to the ground inside a bedroom.

A third suspect was bundled to the living-room floor as the house was searched for hidden guns and drugs.

The raid took place in January, just hours after Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, vowed to wage "war" to prevent Ecuador becoming "a narcostate".

The two captured men were allegedly members of Los Águilas (the Eagles), one of 22 gangs and organised crime groups that Noboa accuses of bringing carnage to what was until recently one of South America's most peaceful countries.

Similar scenes have played out in recent years from Tijuana, on the Mexico-US border, to Rio de Janeiro as part of a bloody and largely ineffectual battle against the illegal drug trade.