Ecuador: Smugglers Adapt to the situation, using social media

SMUGGLERS USE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WEBSITES TO SELL TO EXPATS

Liam Higgins/cuencahighlife.com / When customs agents began slapping “government-approved” labels on imported liquor at the beginning of the year, they thought they had dealt the country’s booming bootlegging industry a fatal blow. They were wrong.

Before the labels, liquor store owners were able to buy from smugglers at half-price and mix the contraband into their legal shelf stock. A little bookkeeping legerdemain made everything appear on the up-and-up when the tax man paid a visit.

Faced with losing a significant part of their market, smugglers quickly adopted a direct-to-the-customer social media strategy. Within weeks of the start of labeling, dozens of Facebook pages and other social media sites popped up advertising home delivery of imported liquor, and other products, trucked in from Colombia and Peru. Today, the top five Ecuador Facebook liquor pages have almost 200,000 members. Read Article

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With the labels, legitimate liquor salespeople were forced to make a choice: buy from smugglers and create their own black market and risk arrest, or simply try to make a living with the highly taxed legal imports. Most opted for the latter even though it hammered their bottom line.