On this episode of Going Underground, we speak with Andrés Arauz, former Ecuadorian presidential candidate and former minister of knowledge and human talent. He discusses how criminal mafias in Ecuador have infiltrated the government, prisons and judicial systems under President Daniel Noboa, and how the IMF has weakened the state (and its ability to fight the mafias) through austerity. He also discusses deepening ties between the US and Ecuador in a strategic partnership, through which the US is set to open a military base on the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador’s full-throttled support for Israel’s genocidal slaughter in Gaza, Ecuador’s deal to transfer weapons to the US to be used against Russia in Ukraine, which signals Ecuador becoming a US vassal state, the prospect of a return for former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and much more.