Mexican Navy Seizes 4,000 Pounds of Cocaine From Ecuador

8/14/2018
Updated:
8/14/2018

The Mexican navy have seized almost 4,000 pounds of cocaine off its southern Pacific coast on Aug. 9, The Associated Press reported.

They made a statement on Aug. 10 that one of its planes found a boat 87 nautical miles off Acapulco.

Upon searching the boat, they found 75 packages that weighed approximately 4,000 pounds. The boat was equipped with two powerful motors.

The man they arrested said that he was a citizen of Ecuador.

Ecuador’s Growing Drug Problem

There are growing concerns about Ecuador’s drug problem, particularly when it had the biggest cocaine seizure in 2016.
In December 2016, Ecuador seized 11 tons of cocaine at a port in Guayaquil in just a few days. Throughout the year, the Ecuadorean National Police had seize 47 metric tons of cocaine and dismantled 29 criminal organizations, Insight Crime reported.

Criminal organizations would gather cocaine within the provinces of Ecuador, namely, Napo, Orellana, Santo Domingo, and Chimborazo.

The map shows where drugs are stored before they are transported to Guayaquil port for shipping. (Google Maps)
The map shows where drugs are stored before they are transported to Guayaquil port for shipping. (Google Maps)
A security agent told El Comercio, the oldest Peruvian newspaper, that the gangs know the least monitored routes. They transport large amounts of drugs to these provinces and when they have accumulated enough cocaine, they send small amounts to little warehouses and workshops in Guayaquil in ordinary looking vehicles that are modified to hide drugs, Insight Crime reported.
As of July 6, 2018, Ecuador has seized cocaine 2,000 times and over 300 seizures occurred in Guayaquil. And up to June, 36 tons have been seized.

Troublesome Neighbors

According to the crime analysis provided by Insight Crime, Ecuador doesn’t produce enough cocaine to be substantial, but its neighboring countries, Colombia and Peru are major producers of cocaine.

The massive boom in production can be explained by the increase in coca bush farming in Colombia and Peru.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a 2018 World Drug Report stating that Colombia is the main country driving coca bush production, with 526,334 acres of cultivated land, accounting for 68.5 percent of coca cultivation around the world.

That is equivalent to 113,781 NFL football fields.

As of 2016, Peru had 108,479 acres of cultivated land, making up 21 percent of the global coca production.

That is equivalent to 23,478 NFL football fields.

Potential factors for the recent growth include market dynamics, strategic transportation, and the perception of a decrease in risk of illegal activity.

War on Drugs Versus Rehabilitation

There are two anti-drug strategies implemented in the world, the war on drugs and treating drug abuse as a health problem.
Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, enacted a new drug law in 2008 that would curb drug use by treating it as a public health issue. The law stated that “narcotics use be managed not by control, repression, and even criminalization, but from the perspective of prevention,” Public Radio International reported.

The 2018 World Drug Report stated that when the treatment for opiate use increased 51 percent, the number of people admitting themselves for treatment decreased from 248,000 to 88,000 individuals.

An Ecuadorean spokeswoman for the Christian grouping on the center-right argued that removing legal restrictions would cause more people to consume drugs.