Ecuador's Fishing Sector Exploited by Drug Traffickers

The convergence between Mexican cartels and Ecuadorian criminal organizations has led to the formation of a transnational logistics network, with Ecuador's fishing sector playing a key role.

This network allows for the movement of large volumes of cocaine over long distances without relying on a single segment or operator. The flexibility of this system is facilitated by the infiltration of Ecuador's fishing sector, which provides criminal groups with logistical cover and allows them to spread risk.

Sanctions announced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on August 20 illustrate this dynamic. Eight Ecuadorian nationals, 10 vessels, and seven Ecuadorian companies, primarily in the fishing sector, were involved in a network that clandestinely transported thousands of kilograms of cocaine each month from South America to Mexico through the Eastern Pacific (EPAC) corridor.

The network is centered around operators linked to Los Choneros and Los Lobos, two of Ecuador's most violent criminal organizations. These groups have ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). According to OFAC, the network used fishing fleets off Ecuador's coast to provide fuel, food, and at-sea assistance to go-fast vessels (GFVs) bound for Mexico. Some of the vessels also detected and monitored law enforcement vessels, while at least one was used to transport cocaine.

OFAC's action adds a financial dimension to the operational pressure on these networks. The approach goes beyond targeting their leaders, seeking to simultaneously disrupt the nodes that enable them to function - operators, companies, vessels, and other facilitators - while complementing maritime interdiction operations and intelligence sharing.

The operation is part of a coordinated interagency counternarcotics effort involving Homeland Security Task Force-Tampa, Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S), the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Florida National Guard, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Fishing as drug trafficking Infrastructure

The network identified by OFAC illustrates an increasingly established dynamic: the integration of criminal activities into the legal economy to turn its infrastructure, resources, and capabilities into logistical assets for drug trafficking. In this model, fishing, according to Nicolás Zevallos Trigoso, director of Public Affairs at the Institute of Criminology in Peru, “is not simply a cover, but an operational infrastructure” that allows criminal networks to reduce costs, risks, and exposure.

The structure is compartmentalized into several levels, with distinct but interconnected functions. At the operational level are the coordinators who connect criminal organizations with transportation networks and manage large-scale movements. According to Treasury, Julio Javier Mero Franco operated on behalf of Los Choneros and coordinated “the movement of approximately 30-40 tons of cocaine per month from Ecuador to Central America and Mexico,” while Milton Edixon Martínez Mendoza was linked to Los Lobos and Los Choneros and coordinated the transportation of thousands of kilograms of cocaine aboard GFVs.

Cloned vessels

Criminal exploitation of the fishing sector extends beyond the network identified by OFAC. Ecuadorian authorities and investigations have also documented the use of fraudulently registered or cloned vessels, locally known as “ghost vessels,” which can facilitate illicit activities and improper access to resources intended to support the fishing industry, such as subsidized fuel.

One of the most sophisticated forms of this manipulation is vessel cloning. “Cloning tells us that organized crime no longer needs to build parallel infrastructure: It only needs to falsify the administrative identity of legitimate infrastructure that already exists,” Zevallos said. “The advantage is twofold: It operates under the documentation of a real vessel, and when it is caught, criminal responsibility becomes blurred between two registered identities.”

Criminal governance

The infiltration of the fishing sector goes beyond exploiting its resources and infrastructure. It also allows criminal organizations to expand their control over those who work in the industry and the coastal communities that depend on it. This territorial control gives them not only resources and manpower but also access to information and a support network essential to maritime drug trafficking operations.

So-called vacunas, or protection payments periodically extorted from fishermen, are one of the main tools used to exert this control. According to Primicias, fishermen in San Lorenzo, Manabí, said they paid approximately $140 per vessel each month, amounting to an estimated $168,000 annually. The Ecuadorian Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations also estimates that nearly all of Manabí’s approximately 60,000 artisanal fishermen are exposed in some way to criminal activity.