Assange was allowed back online in late 2018, but only after agreeing not to “carry out activities that could be considered political interference in the internal affairs of other states.” At the same time, Ecuador imposed a new and detailed set of rules on its fugitive guest, banning unannounced visitors, and requiring Assange to pay his own medical bills, clean up after himself in the bathroom and tend to the “well-being, food, cleanliness, and proper care” of his cat.

Assange bristled at the restrictions and took Ecuador’s foreign ministry to court. When he lost, he filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which rejected it.

What happened next was perhaps inevitable. It was Lenín Moreno’s time in the barrel.

In late February, one of Moreno’s political rivals revealed he’d received a tranche of leaked documents from an anonymous source. The files, he claimed, showed Moreno had corruptly profited from a deal with a Chinese firm. The dossier was dubbed the “INA Papers,” after one of the shell companies allegedly used to channel the money, INA Investments Corp.