MIAMI – Ecuadorian authorities, in conjunction with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Europol, have dismantled one of the most sophisticated cocaine smuggling networks operating out of South America’s most volatile country.
The criminal enterprise stretched from the banana-packing houses of Pacific coastal towns in western Ecuador to European port cities of Antwerp and Rotterdam.
The operation—dubbed “Operation Coast”—by Ecuador’s Minister of the Interior John Reimberg, announced on Tuesday, targeted a network built around a single key figure: Hernán Ruilova Barzola, who, according to Reimberg, served as the critical link between the Mexican cartel-linked, Ecuadorian drug gang Los Lobos, and Albanian mafia groups responsible for distributing large shipments of cocaine across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe from South America.
The year-long investigation resulted in the arrest of 16 people, 26 property searches across three countries (operations were executed simultaneously in Belgium and the Netherlands by European authorities), and the seizure of 7.64 tons of cocaine with an estimated street value of $346 million on the European market.
During raids inside Ecuador, police confiscated 14 luxury vehicles, 20 cell phones, firearms, jewelry, and more than $800,000 in cash found in properties linked to the network, according to Latin American outlet infobae.
Among the subjects detained by Ecuadorian security forces was economist Jorge S.F., a former councilman in the city of Machala and former assemblyman for the Social Christian Party in 2012.
The former councilman was identified by authorities as a suspected member of the network under investigation for organized crime and drug trafficking with ties to European crime networks.
The method was one investigators have seen before — but rarely at this scale. The criminal organization used fruit-exporting companies as cover for cocaine shipments, concealing drugs within refrigerated cargo containers used to store bananas bound for European ports.
Upon arrival, the cocaine entered a distribution network that intricately splintered off into European supply routes, moving shipments across multiple countries to make their way to buyers.
Another major arrest was of Salomón Padua, who is suspected of providing political cover for the network’s operations inside Ecuador. The suspected ringleader of the Euro-linked operation, Hernán Ruilova Barzola, was also captured in Machala, a port city in El Oro province that has long been identified as a key transit hub for narco-shipments destined for Europe.
The Albanian connection is not incidental—it is structural. Albanian organized crime groups have operated in Ecuador since the 1990s, drawn by the country’s Pacific ports, its position between the world’s two largest cocaine producers in Colombia and Peru, and historically weak port inspection rates, which offer smugglers a lucrative outflow reaching hungry markets in Europe.
Albanian drug organizations assign delegates to represent their interest in South America and negotiate wholesale prices with local South American drug gangs that are often backed by the Mexican cartels like the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel.
The timing of the announcement carries deliberate weight. President Daniel Noboa unveiled the results just days after declaring a new phase of joint military and law enforcement operations with the United States, imposing curfews across four of Ecuador’s most violent provinces, and hosting the heads of U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Special Operations at the presidential palace in Quito.
The message from his government was explicit: Ecuador is no longer a permissive environment for transnational criminal elements, and international partners are now directly involved in the fight.
Reimberg also confirmed that the operational center for the bust was established inside Ecuador, with agents from Europol, Antwerp police, the Dutch National Investigation Unit, and the U.S. DEA all working under one umbrella with Ecuadorian counterparts.
For Noboa, the bust comes at a critical moment during his young administration. The Naboa government is facing a March 15 curfew rollout across Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, and El Oro—the same coastal provinces that serve as the backbone of Ecuador’s cocaine export infrastructure.
Critics, however, argue that military pressure alone cannot break the financial architecture that sustains networks like this one, but that the state must also dedicate its efforts to tackling public corruption and the political interests that help to serve these criminal enterprises.
But with $346 million worth of cocaine now off the market, a sitting former legislator in custody, a hammer blow to Los Lobos, and Albanian smuggling brokers facing prosecution in three countries, Noboa has delivered the kind of headline that tells the cartels and his countrymen: public order is being restored.
