Security in Ecuador has come undone as drug cartels exploit the banana industry to ship cocaine

Workers haul the bunches to an assembly line, where the bananas are washed, weighed and plastered with stickers for European buyers. Owner Franklin Torres is monitoring all activity on a recent morning to make sure the fruit meets international beauty standards - and ever more important, is packed for shipment free of cocaine.

“This is everyone’s responsibility: the person who transports it, the person who buys it, the person who consumes it,” vendor Dalia Chang, 59, a lifelong resident of Guayaquil, said of the cocaine trade. “They all share responsibility. They have ruined our country.” A record 2,304 metric tons of cocaine was manufactured in 2021 around the world, mostly in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. That year, nearly a third of the cocaine seized by customs authorities in Western and Central Europe came from Ecuador, double the amount reported in 2018, according to a United Nations report citing data from the World Customs Organization.

Knowingly or not, banana growers, exporters, shipping corporations, port operators, private security companies, customs agents, agriculture officials, police, and buyers offer opportunities that drug traffickers have exploited. In Guayaquil, where maritime shipping containers are part of the landscape, people live in fear these days. Pedestrians don’t dare take their phones out of their pockets. Convenience stores have floor-to-ceiling metal bars that prevent customers from entering from the sidewalk. Restaurants that survived the pandemic close early.

No more than 30% of containers is currently inspected at Ecuadorian ports, a process done manually or with drug-sniffing dogs. President Guillermo Lasso’s government says it wants to use scanners on entire containers. Twelve of those machines were supposed to be operating already but Ramírez said that has not happened yet.

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Security in Ecuador has come undone as drug cartels exploit the banana industry to ship cocaineEcuador's location is increasingly putting it at the confluence of two global trades: bananas and cocaine.
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Security in Ecuador has come undone as drug cartels exploit the banana industry to ship cocaineEcuador's location is increasingly putting it at the confluence of two global trades: bananas and cocaine
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