Ecuadorian Police Break Into Mexican Embassy, Arrest Former Ecuadorian VP Jorge Glas

On April 5, dozens of Ecuadorian police officers forcibly entered the Mexican Embassy in Quito and detained former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas. Glas had been granted political asylum by Mexico earlier that day after having applied in December 2023 amid intensified political persecution against him.

The Ecuadorian move has been widely condemned by nearly the entire political spectrum in Mexico as a grave violation of Mexican sovereignty.

Following the incident, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena announced that Mexico was suspending diplomatic relations with the country.

The unprecedented incident took place amid rising tensions between the two countries. Jorge Glas had been seeking refuge at the Mexican embassy since December 18, 2023, and residing in the embassy as a “guest” after Ecuadorian authorities began to intensify pressure on Glas and summon him for investigations. In early April 2024, the government of Daniel Noboa announced that it declared the Mexican Ambassador Raquel Serur Smeke a “persona non-grata,” allegedly in response to comments made by President López Obrador in his morning press conference. These comments insinuated that Noboa had benefited from the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. However, many analysts have pointed to Glas’s presence in the embassy as the key factor behind Quito’s attacks on Mexico, and the events of April 5 seem to have confirmed this theory.