Members of the Ecuadorian police and the army present 22 tons of drugs on January 22, seized after a military operation. Photo: Daniel Vite/AFP via Getty Images
A colossal 22 tons of cocaine has been found by Ecuador’s military in one of the world’s biggest ever seizures of the drug.The haul, valued at $1.1 billion by officials, was found on Sunday at a pig farm in the province of Los Rios.The drugs were found alongside a weapons cache and were packaged in bricks labelled with airlines such as Etihad, BA, Lufthansa and KLM. The discovery, on top of an estimated 14 tons of cocaine already seized from gangs this month, represents a big win for President Daniel Noboa’s war against organised crime in his country – which blew up earlier this month when convicted gang leader ‘Fito’ escaped prison and the authorities declared a national state of emergency. “It is presumed that this material could have been transported to the markets of Asia, Europe and North and Central America,” the Ecuadorian army said in a post on X. “This operation represents a strong weakening of the operational, logistical and financial capacity of drug trafficking worldwide.”Ecuador has seen a massive increase in crime and violence over the past five years as international cocaine trafficking gangs started using its ports, in particular its largest, Guayaquil, as transit points for shipments between Colombia and Europe.
