Gold Rush State

Ecuador, on South America’s western edge, has in just a few years become the drug trade’s gold rush state, with major cartels from as far as Mexico and Albania joining forces with prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history.

This new venture was an Old West town celebrating both westward expansion and the California Dream — the notion that this Gold Rush state was a land of easy fortune for all.

The Gold Rush State has sunk more than 45 feet since 1935 – something the U.S. government calls the "largest human alteration of the earth's surface."