How drug traffickers seized power in Ecuador

Police officers inspecting boxes of shrimp for export suspected of containing cocaine in the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

WHEN Europe’s busiest port recently announced the discovery of nearly nine tonnes of cocaine hidden in a shipment of bananas – its biggest-ever seizure of illegal narcotics – it included a detail that was no longer surprising. The shipment had come not from Colombia or Peru, Latin America’s largest cocaine producers, but from Ecuador, the small nation sandwiched between them.

Ecuador has struggled for years with drug trafficking because of its geographic location, fairly porous borders and major Pacific Ocean ports. But in recent years, the situation has gotten much worse.