2023-09-04 07:23:04
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Men walk through a lush plantation between Ecuador’s peaceful Pacific coast and its majestic Andres, pruning hundreds of green banana branches from the massive trees twice their height.
Workers bring the bunches to a production line where the bananas are washed, weighed and labeled for European buyers. The owner, Franklin Torres, closely follows the activities during a recent morning to ensure that the fruits meet international aesthetic standards. And most importantly, so that the bananas are packaged for shipment cocaine-free.
Torres is more alert than ever as Ecuador finds itself increasingly at the convergence of two global trades: bananas and cocaine.
The South American nation is the world’s largest banana exporter, shipping around 6.5 million tons a year by sea. It also ranks among the world’s top cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia, and drug traffickers have found the perfect vehicle to smuggle their product in containers packed with bananas.
The infiltration of drug traffickers into the industry responsible for around 30% of the world’s bananas has contributed to an unprecedented wave of violence in what was once a peaceful nation. Shootings, homicides, kidnappings and extortions have become part of daily life, especially in the port city of Guayaquil, a Pacific banana hub.
“Everyone has responsibility. The one who transports it, the one who buys it, the one who consumes it,” said vendor Dalia Chang, a 59-year-old resident of Guayaquil, referring to cocaine smuggling. “Everyone has their share. They have undone our country.”
The country, which is not a major cocaine producer, was particularly shaken when a presidential candidate known for his tough stance once morest organized crime and corruption — Fernando Villavicencio — was shot dead following finishing a campaign rally on the 9th. of August. Days before his murder, Villavicencio had accused the Ecuadorian criminal group Los Choneros, which he linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, of threatening him and his campaign team.
In addition to its proximity to cocaine production, cartels from Mexico, Colombia, and the Balkans have established themselves in Ecuador because it uses the dollar as its currency and has weak laws and institutions, as well as a network of established criminal groups, such as Los Choneros, who are eager to work.
Authorities point out that Ecuador also gained importance in the global cocaine trade following political changes in Colombia in the last decade. Coca fields in Colombia have been moving closer to the border with Ecuador due to the dismantling of criminal groups following the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2019.
In 2021, a record amount of 2,304 tons of cocaine was produced worldwide, most of it in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. That year, almost a third of the cocaine seized by customs authorities in western and central Europe came from Ecuador, double the amount reported in 2018, according to a United Nations study using data from the World Customs Organization. Seizures of large narcotics shipments have become more frequent, and in the past month European authorities have seized record numbers following inspecting shipments of bananas from Ecuador.
On August 25, authorities in Spain disclosed the largest cocaine seizure to date: 9.5 tons hidden among boxes of Ecuadorian bananas in a refrigerated container. The Netherlands also carried out the largest seizure of cocaine in the country’s history last month — nearly 8 tons — in a container of Ecuadorian bananas. Authorities in Greece and Italy also reported seizing cocaine concealed in banana shipments from Ecuador so far this year.
The bananas that are sent to Europe are packaged in the plantations, placed in trucks that take them to huge warehouses in the Guayaquil area and transferred to maritime containers in the direction of the port area.
Then the ship heads northeast towards the Panama Canal, reaches the Caribbean Sea and crosses the Atlantic.
With or without their knowledge, producers, exporters, shipping corporations, port operators, private security companies, customs agents, agricultural officials, police officers, and buyers offer opportunities that have been exploited by drug traffickers.
Some traffickers have created front companies posing as legitimate banana exporters, while others have acquired legitimate businesses, including plantations. They have found companies willing to be accomplices in the transfer of cocaine. They have also bribed, threatened or kidnapped shippers and other workers to help get cocaine into shipments.
Other traffickers have corrupted or intimidated police, customs agents, security guards, and port workers into collaborating with, or ignoring, the handling of containers in ports.
Drug trafficking has contributed to the number of violent deaths in Ecuador, which have doubled from 2021 to 2022, when 4,600 people lost their lives, the highest number recorded in a year. The country is set to break the record once more, with 3,568 violent deaths registered in the first half of 2023.
In Guayaquil, where shipping containers are part of the landscape, people live in fear these days. Passersby don’t dare take their phones out of their pockets. Convenience stores have floor-to-ceiling metal bars to prevent customers from entering from the sidewalk. Restaurants that survived the pandemic close early.
As well as the increase in the number of homicides, the amount of cocaine seized in the country’s ports has also increased, reaching 77.4 tons last year. The figure is three times greater than the amount confiscated in 2020.
National Police General Pablo Ramírez, Ecuador’s national director of anti-drug investigations, attributed the change to an increase in smuggling, not better security.
Police data also shows that of last year’s total, a record 47.5 tons of cocaine were found in banana shipments, despite the fact that banana exports fell by 6.4% compared to 2021.
Currently, no more than 30% of the containers in Ecuadorian ports are checked, a process that is carried out manually or with dogs trained in the detection of narcotics. The government of President Guillermo Lasso says it wants to use scanners on full containers. It is assumed that 12 of these devices should already be in operation, which has not yet happened.
Ramírez said he anticipates all ports will have scanners in operation by mid-2024. He said two ports have piloted the use of scanners to ease the transition of internal processes and train staff who will work with the machines.
The operator of Guayaquil’s largest port, Contecon Guayaquil SA, has declined requests to give an interview and access to the port to The Associated Press to see existing security procedures. In response to written questions regarding the measures, spokeswoman Alexandra Pacheco said in a statement that the operator reached an agreement with the National Police in 2022 to, among other things, “strengthen operations in the port.” She added that the operator plans to invest around $15 million in the scanners.
José Hidalgo, executive director of the Ecuadorian Banana Exporters Association, said the industry faces greater exposure to drug trafficking than exporting any other commodity due to the volume of containers it uses.
“It is because of the bananas that there are so many ports,” said Hidalgo. “”It opens routes to other export products”.
He explained that exporters invest around 100 million dollars a year in security measures, including surveillance cameras in the plantations, GPS monitoring in trucks and the identification of land routes that require police escort.
However, some exporters have been accused of being complicit in or directly involved in cocaine trafficking.
Torres, the owner of the plantation, would like these types of exporters to be expelled from the industry. But there are no regulations that can be used to revoke a company’s banana export permit when it has been repeatedly linked to drug trafficking.
“It bothers me a lot,” Torres said. “My people work bananas, they don’t work drugs. It’s a flagship product, the best in the world, and seeing it stained like that is unfortunate.”
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