Ecuadorian police have seized two metric tons of cocaine impregnated into cardboard boxes used to store export pineapples inside a container at the port of Posorja, on the Gulf of Guayaquil, that was destined for Rotterdam in the Netherlands, authorities announced Tuesday.
Interior Minister John Reimberg said that “investigative work” allowed agents to detect the container belonging to a fruit exporting company that had been contaminated. The drugs are valued at more than $94 million on the European market, according to the minister.
Hours earlier, police also reported the seizure of 75 kilos of cocaine hidden in the double bottom of a vehicle entering the same port. In that case, officers arrested the driver and confiscated four GPS devices and two mobile phones.
The government began construction in April of a naval station in Posorja, just kilometers from the deep-water port, to strengthen anti-narcotics operations in the Gulf of Guayaquil — a contested area where criminal groups constantly seek new methods to smuggle drugs onto ships leaving Ecuador’s most populous city for Europe and the United States.
According to official data, Ecuadorian security forces seized 227.1 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine, nationwide in 2025 — 67 tons less than the record 294.61 tons reported in 2024.
Critics of the Noboa administration, such as Colombian President Gustavo Petro, have accused “corrupt Ecuadorian politicians” of being complicit with the mafias that enable drug trafficking.
Author: Victor Miranda
Source: agencies
0 Comentarios