Ecuadorean police investigators, U.S. pilots and both countries' navies, working together, seized 33 tons of cocaine in Ecuadorean territory and on vessels in 2006, up from a "small fraction" of that amount in 2003, said a U.S. State Department official responsible for antidrug efforts in Ecuador.
No one knows how much of the estimated 750 tons of cocaine produced annually in Colombia is shipped through Ecuador. But applying one rule of thumb, the 33 tons seized last year could represent one-third of all the cocaine that passed through the country. That would work out to 100 tons, or about 13% of Colombia's cocaine.
The eight surveillance planes were key to the seizures, U.S. officials said, but their importance extends beyond Ecuador. Flights from the Manta air base played a part in 60% of drug interdictions by U.S. and allied fleets in the eastern Pacific last year, said the U.S. military's Southern Command in Miami.
Increased levels of drug trafficking in Ecuador are illustrated by the seizures in the eastern Pacific of Ecuadorean boats packed with cocaine.
They have outnumbered Colombian boats 4 to 1, said the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she did not have permission to comment on the record. The amount of cocaine on the boats ranged from 2 to 7 tons, officials said.
"Seizure of Ecuadorean 'mother' boats were unheard of a few years ago," said the State Department official, referring to large boats.
Going through Ecuador
The increase is due to vigilance at Colombia's ports and in its airspace, also a result of the U.S. surveillance planes based in Ecuador, officials say.
The effort has forced drug traffickers to send an increasing share of Colombia's cocaine through Ecuador en route to the North American market.
Boats typically travel as far as 2,000 miles off Ecuador, past the Galapagos Islands, before transferring the cocaine to high-speed boats that complete the smuggling trips to Mexico and Central America, guided by global positioning systems and refueled by makeshift tankers.
"Boats are pushing farther and farther out," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Javier Delucca, the ranking U.S. military officer in Ecuador.
Numerous Colombian drug traffickers have moved to Ecuador in recent years, easily fitting in with the estimated 300,000 Colombians who have sought refuge from the civil war in the last decade.
