Ecuador’s most dangerous cartel has a new problem in the Pacific: its floating gas station is at the bottom of the ocean. U.S. forces sank a refueling vessel used by Los Choneros, the Ecuadorian organized crime ring that Washington designated a foreign terrorist organization last week, during an interdiction in the Eastern Pacific, Fox News reports.
The takedown came from Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, the command U.S. Southern Command activated in August to counter threats, strengthen regional security, and respond to crises across the region. The vessel was running fuel for the cartel’s at-sea drug trafficking operations. It was not a fishing boat. The people aboard were removed first, and they will be handed over to Ecuadorian authorities. The boat got no such courtesy.
Refueling at sea is what keeps drug boats running far from shore without ever touching land. A fuel stop that sits in open water is also a target that cannot run, and SOUTHCOM framed Monday’s strike as one step in a longer war. “JTF-WHEM continues to conduct precise and professional operations to dismantle the logistical networks fueling narco-trafficking in the Western Hemisphere,” the command said in a post on X.
This was not a one-off. U.S. forces have launched dozens of strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels under the administration’s anti-drug campaign, which has made boats hauling product toward American shores a military target rather than a law-enforcement case. The strategy is blunt: cartels need fuel to move weight, and fuel boats are easier to sink than fleets are to hide. Every sunk fuel boat is a run that never happens, and every run that never happens is cocaine and fentanyl that never reaches an American street.
Los Choneros knows it is in the crosshairs. Last week the State Department designated the group a foreign terrorist organization, noting its members have attacked and threatened public officials and their families, security personnel, judges, prosecutors, and journalists in Ecuador. Deputy spokesperson Thomas Pigott put the threat plainly: “Their ultimate goal is to control drug trafficking routes through Ecuador by terrorizing and inflicting brutal violence on the Ecuadorian people.”
The group’s boss already sits in U.S. custody. In July, American and Ecuadorian authorities worked together to extradite Los Choneros leader Fito Macias, the first Ecuadorian citizen ever extradited from his own country to face justice in the United States. The kingpin is gone, and now the machinery that floated his product is going down with him.
Cartels can replace crews and buy new hulls. What they cannot replace is open-ocean refueling in the middle of a patrol zone where the U.S. military is actively hunting. Cut the fuel, and the fastest boats in the Eastern Pacific turn into expensive floating targets.
Source: foxnews.com