$350 per body: Mafias take over a public cemetery in Ecuador

When Luis, 80, died this past April after a long illness, his daughter Mariana went to the offices of the María Canals Cemetery, one of the five public cemeteries in Guayaquil, Ecuador. At the counter, she was informed that the burial would be free for four years, but that she would have to build a cement mound. They explained, without offering much detail, that there are people at the cemetery who build the cement burial vaults where coffins are placed. And they didn’t tell her how much it would cost; they only told her that the people there “made a living” doing this work.

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