Never before had Ecuador seized as much drugs in a single place as what was found buried in a pig farm in the Estero Lagarto sector, which is in the coastal province of Los Ríos, about 250 kilometers from Quito.
In 733 jute bundles, 22 tons of cocaine hydrochloride were stored, perfectly packaged in the shape of a brick and labeled with names that would be the destinations of the drug: Iberia, KLM, Qatar, AB, JET2.
“There are six different logos that make it clear what the destinations were,” said César Zapata, police commander.
The Armed Forces carried out the operation with 150 soldiers on Sunday morning and ended at dusk.
What seemed like a blow to drug trafficking turned out to be an unprecedented discovery.
A dozen soldiers had the location of where nearly 10 tons of drugs were buried, they dug four meters underground for hours to remove the packages with the illicit substance that would have a value in the international market of one billion dollars.
The military's search took them to a sewer duct, which led to a labyrinth beneath the earth, where another 12 tons of cocaine hydrochloride were located.
The finding reinforces the investigation of the Armed Forces who maintain that Ecuador would not only be a transit country, but that they could have drug processing laboratories.
In addition, 12 rifles and more than 5,000 ammunition were found stashed in the property.
According to authorities, the success of the operation was the result of six months of investigation, through observation and surveillance by the military intelligence unit.
However, it has not been determined who owns the property.
“We are working to find out who it belongs to,” added the Police commander, who explained that the drugs were going to be transported on boats to contaminate cargo ships leaving ports and be sent to the United States, Central America, Europe and Asia.
The farm was a drug and weapons collection center, “a whitewashed warehouse with the façade of a pork center,” Army personnel said during the operation.
Estero Lagarto is a rural area that is very well camouflaged in the middle of mountains and extensive agricultural lands that can only be accessed by a narrow dirt road, practically in the middle of nowhere.
Only one person who was guarding the farm was arrested during the operation.
The public force has requested agility from the justice authorities to quickly destroy the 22 tons of drugs, which required a military truck to be transported.
Ecuador is the third country with the most cocaine seized in the world, according to the latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs.
In the last three years, around 550 tons of illicit substances were seized in the country.
International drug trafficking is one of the reasons for the war between gangs that is waged in the territory and has caused levels of violence that the South American country had never experienced before.
In the first days of 2024, 27 violent deaths were recorded every day.
With the state of war decree of January 9, they have been reduced to 10 daily events, said the Police commander.
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