Ecuador's prisons are run by gangs. It's a different kind of hell hole. Lots of murder in there (by prisoners. In El Salvador, it's the guards that do the torture and murder)
Bitcoin is a transparent ledger. It would be better to trade it for USD, which is main currency for laundering illegal funds, and the currency used by both the US and EC
Yes, a privacy coin makes more sense. But it's not used to launder much money, compared to USD.
The amount of monero that's used to launder is negligible compared to dollars.