HomeNewsAnalysisTracking Drug Routes through Ecuador
ANALYSIS

Tracking Drug Routes through Ecuador

ECUADOR / 7 JAN 2011 BY STEVEN DUDLEY EN

In 2009, Ecuadorean authorities stopped 63 tons of cocaine, a record for Ecuador and a nearly 100 percent increase from 2008.

Drug traffickers are increasingly using the country as a transit route for their merchandise, as evidenced by the uptick in siezures and the arrest this week in Ecuador of an operative authorities said was connected to the Mexican criminal operation, the Sinaloa Cartel.

InSight Crime developed this map to illustrate the most prolific drug routes through Ecuador.

While the country does not produce many illicit substances, it is positioned between the two largest cocaine producers in the world. This geography makes it an optimal, or sometimes necessary, weigh station and embarkation point.

The Sinaloa Cartel obtains cocaine from both Colombia and Peru. To be sure, the operative arrested in Ecuador this week was said to be leading an armed cell along the border of Ecuador and Peru.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) also sell refined cocaine along the Colombia - Ecuadorean border to other criminal syndicates.

The FARC has ties to the Sinaloa, Juarez and Tijuana Cartels. Colombian authorities say the Mexican cartels send operatives to buy refined cocaine or the coca base to process it themselves in laboratories along the Peruvian, Ecuadorean and Colombian borders, then ship it north to the United States, or west to Asia.


View InSight Map: Drug Routes - Ecuador in a larger map

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

EXTORTION / 7 OCT 2021

Despite the pandemic’s economic fallout being felt throughout the Riviera Maya, cartels have continued their extortion schemes in Mexico's popular…

BELTRAN LEYVA ORG / 7 JAN 2022

Murders have spiked in Mexico's northern state of Sonora, thanks to the volatile mix of a veteran drug trafficker's alleged…

COCAINE / 22 FEB 2023

The conviction of Genaro García Luna is a big victory for US law enforcement institutions. But problems remain in the…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…