How Ecuador became a global cocaine hub

Adriana Marin, Coventry University

For decades, discussions about Latin America’s cocaine trade have tended to focus on the same places. Colombia and Peru produce much of the world’s coca, while Mexico’s cartels dominate trafficking into the US. But between these known parts of the supply chain, another country has quietly become important: Ecuador.

Ecuador is not a major cocaine producer. Instead, its location between Colombia and Peru, combined with ports such as Guayaquil and Posorja on the Pacific Ocean, have turned Ecuador into a crucial transit and export hub connecting South American cocaine production with global markets.

A recent US investigation shows how sophisticated these connections have become. On August 20, the US Treasury sanctioned an Ecuador-based trafficking network accused of moving thousands of kilograms of cocaine each month through the eastern Pacific to Mexico and on to the US.

Eight individuals, seven companies and ten vessels were targeted, with alleged connections to Ecuador’s Los Choneros and Los Lobos crime groups and Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Some of the vessels identified by US authorities were linked to apparently legitimate fishing businesses around the coastal city of Manta. Ecuador has a large fishing and aquaculture export industry. Larger vessels allegedly provided fuel and supplies to smaller high-speed boats, which carry cocaine northwards.

We often imagine a clear boundary between criminal and legitimate economies. But, in reality, they overlap. Fishing vessels, exporters, containers and commercial ports can all serve legitimate purposes while also being exploited by trafficking networks.

The banana industry offers another striking example of how the same international trade that is vital to Ecuador’s legitimate economy has created opportunities for organised crime. Ecuador is the world’s largest banana exporter, sending large volumes of produce through its ports in refrigerated containers. Inspecting every container is practically impossible without disrupting legitimate commerce.

In early August, Ecuadorian authorities discovered around 1.2 tonnes of cocaine concealed in a banana shipment leaving Guayaquil for Málaga in Spain. A few months earlier, a Europol investigation also found that fruit-exporting companies were being used as fronts for cocaine shipments from Ecuador to Europe.

This shows that organised crime does not need to construct an alternative global trading system. It can exploit the one that already exists. Cocaine can be produced in Colombia, moved into Ecuador, handled by local groups, transported through a commercial port and eventually distributed thousands of miles away on different continents.

The organisations involved do not need to belong to one criminal empire. Instead, they cooperate when it is profitable. A 2023 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that trafficking organisations increasingly specialise in particular stages and functions, with brokers and other groups facilitating transportation, finance and logistics.

War on drugs

Ecuador’s emergence as a major cocaine hub illustrates a longstanding weakness of the global US-led war on drugs: enforcement can disrupt trafficking without necessarily dismantling the market behind it.

In January 2026, the UK government described Ecuador as a “platform country” for cocaine produced elsewhere in Latin America. It stated that the majority of cocaine reaching Britain transits through Ecuadorian ports, and that up to 80% of cocaine arriving in Europe passes through the country.

The profits help explain the trade’s resilience. According to the UK government’s own estimates, a kilogram of cocaine valued at around £1,600 at the start of its journey in Latin America can be worth more than £28,000 by the time it reaches the UK. This represents an increase of more than 1,600%.

Europe has become a particularly important destination for South American cocaine. UNODC data shows that cocaine seizures in western and central Europe have exceeded those in North America for several consecutive years.

And Bob Van den Berghe, deputy head of the UNODC’s passenger and cargo border team, said in 2024 that “of 220 tonnes of cocaine seized last year by authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean, 84% was bound for Europe”.

European demand is a key part of the economic system sustaining Ecuador’s crisis. Yet while Europe demonstrates the demand pulling cocaine across the Atlantic, the US response demonstrates the other side of the drug war: an attempt to attack the organisations supplying it.

Washington has designated Los Choneros and Los Lobos, alongside various other Latin American criminal groups, as foreign terrorist organisations. Drug traffickers are framed not simply as organised criminals but as “narco-terrorists” and national security threats.

Defining organised crime primarily through the lens of terrorism makes aggressive and militarised responses easier to justify. This is already visible in US counter-narcotics policy. Over the past year, the US has deployed warships and military aircraft to the Caribbean and has carried out lethal strikes against suspected drug-trafficking boats.

However, cocaine trafficking does not behave like a conventional military enemy. A criminal network does not necessarily need to defeat the state, it just needs to make money. Destroying boats or arresting gang leaders may disrupt operations, but they do not reduce demand for drugs or the profits that allow networks to regenerate.

Ecuador is a great example of how organised crime has adapted to globalisation. Its ports, legitimate trade and strategic location connect South American cocaine production with consumers in Europe and North America.

Unless policy addresses this wider system, governments risk winning battles against individual criminal groups while leaving the profitable market that continually replaces them intact.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.